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Somewhere, lost within the rippling red seas of time, a boy unlearns boyhood. Growing up is a snare along the road, viper poised and ready to strike. One, and he’s choking in the sticky summer hear. Two, and hes drowning in a river of frayed scarfs fluttering from the tips of school roofs, edges still ensnared in the silver fences. Three, and his friends’ heartbeats lull to metallic hums, whirs and bolts, zeros and ones and error messages. Four, and he’s alone again.
Shintaro Kisaragi is all too familiar with grief. A bitter, burning acid imprinted on the underside of his tongue and the faint reds of his cheeks, he’s learned loss a million different ways. Death is not all-ending, but a series of flashing lights, flickering at the passerby to not cross the street.
“Go away,” It calls to him.
“I can’t.” He calls back.
“Is that the truth?” The summer stop sign is mocking him.
“I don’t want to leave.” Death doesn’t reply.
The first day awake from the loop, Shintaro doesn’t believe he’s made it. After all, time is a trickstar, with nothing too it but pain and repeating, repeating, reloading loss. He can’t make out his sister’s smile, can’t deal with Ene’s silence (“Takene” has taken her place, sending him a series of similarly biting texts). There’s another chime of the phone, another flash of the screen, and ghosts have begun to speak again.
No, Shintaro Kisaragi can’t seem to believe it’s all over.
Perhaps that is the price he paid for his eyes- a bitter sort of loneliness as he reminds himself nobody else remembered the timelines. Nobody else remembered the blood-stained summer, the chase against time, the second hour hand cutting off life too soon. They remembered summer as a series of secret bases and childish games, playing hero in the city’s sun as if they had nothing to worry about. They remembered the smiles, remembered the odd lives they had all lived, the memories they had all shared. The tongue they spoke to each other came naturally, all codes and gentle laughs, knowing glances and warm skies. And, they remembered each other as friends. They remembered each other as family, as corners of themselves tucked within each other. Only children, they remembered each other as “past”, as “present”, as “future”. They called each other grown up names and loved each other in ways that were meant for them, their own paradise in that fleeting summer sun.
And for them, summer had gone as peacefully as it had come. Summer was a song etched in time’s record, and the heat was gentle. They were only kids playing pretend. They were only kids.
The first day awake from the loop, Shintaro Kisaragi pulled himself out of bed, and he was alive. The air was the crisp cool of early fall, who carried herself with open arms. As his feet hit the cold oaken floors, a joy he had not known in years overcame him like a flooding wave. Tears spilled from his eyes as every step pulled him away from the pain. He would never forget the endings, never forget that wicked summer’s grasp. Blood still coated his heart, crusted and dried along the beating muscle, and his breath still shook with the aftermath of screams, begging for time to return to what it was. His heart would not forget the loss of love, of waiting for a girl he couldn’t save, of begging the past to rewrite itself; he would not forget how it felt to beg on paper cranes tossed out classroom windows, hoping to reach the one he had tried to leave behind. Breathless cries, begging her to remain by his side, trapped in a broken heart that could not forget the silence that answered his calls.
No, Shintaro Kisaragi would never forget the past. Even if it would remain engrained in his heart, engrained in his mind as a repeating symphony of pain, he knew he couldn’t forget the night that fell upon those glorious days. Because, to forget the pain would be to forget why he was moving on, on what it meant for him to hold his head high. To forget that burning summer would be to forget the reason why he took a step forward, why he pulled himself through the choking haze of his mind. Even in the twisted history burned within him, days where he could not remember what it is that made him deserve to live...Shintaro remembered the happiness, however fleeting. Laughing within their hidden base, a group of kids with too much pain and only themselves to confide him, Shintaro remembers the way he learned how it felt to be loved unconditionally. Even as they bickered, even as the world seemed to fall upon them, they had each other.
They had each other.
And to forget that would be to forget the one thing that changed Shintaro: Learning he was not alone. He was never alone.
Learning that all he had to do was reach out in those dark days, calling out for the light, and learning there would always be a voice to answer him. Even in the misleading haze of growing up, of unlearning boyhood as one could only walk into the future, there would always be a hand to hold and lead him along the path.
The first day free from the loop, Shintaro Kisaragi was not alone.
There’s a hum of buzzing from his pocket, a stream of messages filling his screen, beckoning him to step beyond that door. This time, death does not linger outside. This time, he’s able to turn that golden knob with a newfound confidence, letting the cool autumn air waft throughout him as he looks down the empty hall, sunlight flickering in from the open windows. This time, there are no snakes anymore, no more Medusa’s or all too familiar deaths. This time, he steps past that restricting door, and into the path of the future.
The skies are a gleaming hue of blue as he cautiously steps down the apartment stairs, hand gripping onto the handrail as he makes his way down slowly. He remembers stairs as red, with a girl falling to her death, a boy shot over the rails. He remembers stairs as ghosts on the steps, watching him with sadness in their eyes.
Shintaro walks down faster.
When he reaches the ground, he’s panting, drenched in sweat and fear, but the skies have never looked so free before, and the air never felt so cool. Shaking, he crouches to the ground, catching his breath, lips beginning to tremble as laughter rolls up within him. A slight hiccup, followed by a genuine roar of freeing joy as the boy learns little by little once again how living feels.
As he walks along the sidewalks, he remembers the phantom trails along the same concrete paths, a boy seeking for the stray threads of a red scarf or a tan sweater worn thin from anxious hands picking at it under the hospital lights. He counts down the passing house number, and as he eyes a door left slightly ajar, he’s left to remind himself that she is not there anymore.
Only, as he goes to turn away, heading out into the summer’s day, there’s a soft voice calling his name.
“Shintaro?”
Shintaro doesn’t believe he’ll ever get used to the ghosts of the past becoming the suns of the future, as behind him stands two girls in school uniforms, one pulling the other’s cheek in faked agitation, the other buried behind a crimson scarf. Behind them, a boy with two birthmarks like a constellation on his chin runs to catch up, face red and panting as he laughs. Shintaro turns, and he knows that it’s over. He doesn’t have to catch himself, correct himself, reminding himself that those he loved are too far gone to be found, because once again, he stands just a boy, surrounded by just kids caught up in the summer’s warmth.
He doesn’t realize he’s begun to cry until there’s a pair of arms wrapped around him, nearly toppling him as he’s captured in a tight embrace. Beneath him, Ayano looks up with wide eyes and a big smile as a shorter pair of arms wrap stiffly behind his back--Takene, no doubt. And then there’s a large pair of arms encircling his shoulders, a head tucked in the crook of his neck.
When Shintaro first awoke from the loop, the summer had taken its bow, and autumn set its stage. The sky was a bright shade of blue, and the heat was not the mocking sneer it had once been, sinking into his skin like a scorching breath. Life was simple, and thought it would never be easy, and the boy would never forget, it was in this moment that he let out such a wide smile, one that he would have never believed possible for himself, and out came one last, joyful laugh.
The path home that I was hurrying down is now just an illusion, so let’s return to that day, when everything was so bright we cried. Why don’t we take a detour?
Along with the me of “yesterday.”