Chapter Text
Kanamori first sees her as she’s getting off the train. She steps through the doors, lowering her head as she does, and when she looks back up, Asakusa’s face is a few yards in front of her, staring back. Kanamori looks away.
This often happens. It was difficult the first few times it did, but she’s since been able to gain control of her emotions, so she’s able to walk away without lingering on the sudden ache in her chest.
She leaves the station, keeping to herself, and heads out onto the street, making her way home. It’s getting dark and maybe that’s the reason she winds up seeing Asakusa’s face again. After all, ghosts like to show themselves at night.
She’s leaning against the wall of an upcoming convenience store, lurking in the shadows like the phantom she is. Kanamori wants to question how she was able to get ahead of her, only she knows Asakusa always had a knack for finding shortcuts. But Kanamori ignores her and walks past. She doesn’t want to waste her time with the apparition, but the ghost has other plans.
“Hey,” she whines. “You can’t just ignore me.”
Funny, Kanamori thinks, I’ve been ignoring you for years.
She trudges on, not saying a word. Behind her, she can hear gravel crunching underneath the soles of feet and she’s aware the ghost is following her.
“Come on, say something,” the voice Kanamori hasn’t heard in so long urges. “I followed you all the way from the station so I could talk to you, and do you know how hard it was to keep track of you with so many people around? If you weren’t so tall, I would have lost you.”
Kanamori resists the urge to say she would have been better off if so.
“Hey, do you remember when we first met?” the ghost continues, “When we rode the train together? It wasn’t crowded like that place was. There was no one there but us.”
Kanamori scowls. This isn’t fair. The ghost digging into her memories like this when she never asked to be thrust back into a life she could never return to.
“I liked the train stations in Shibahama more, anyway. I haven’t seen much of this town, but I think I like everything about Shibahama more. Why’d you have to leave home and move so far away?”
Kanamori decides she can’t take much more. “You know why,” she snaps. She doesn’t look back at her face. She can’t bring herself to.
“Yeah,” Asakusa’s voice is sad in her ears. “I guess I do. It was a dumb question. I just wanted you to talk to me.”
Kanamori feels that she’ll regret asking, but she can’t stop herself. “Why are you here?”
A pause. “I don’t know. I just found myself here. I figured maybe you were thinking of me.”
Kanamori bristles. She hadn’t wanted to be reminded of that. Of one particular moment that had taken place earlier that day, where just one question asked by an unassuming stranger had nearly caused her mind to spiral down a rabbit hole back to the past. It had taken a lot of effort, but she had recovered from it. At least she thought she did. Until the ghost had found her.
“I don’t like it when you just show up out of the blue, you know,” Kanamori says. “And I’m in no particular mood to deal with you right now, so if you don’t mind, please leave me alone.”
“What’s so bad about me sticking around?”
“Everything.”
There’s a sigh behind her. Then before Kanamori can get a grasp of what’s happening, Asakusa has materialized directly in front of her, now blocking her path.
“Kanamori-kun,” she pleads, “can’t you just stay a little longer?”
This is the part Kanamori wanted to avoid. Being so close to Asakusa, looking down at her, being able to trace over every detail of her face, hearing her name fall from her lips. It was exactly the way she remembered. Why did she have to remember it so well?
Kanamori looks to the sky in exasperation and sighs. “Geez. These hallucinations are getting stronger, aren’t they?”
“Eh? Hallucinations?”
There’s concern webbed into Asakusa’s voice and Kanamori hates it. It’s a concern she hasn’t heard in what’s felt like an eternity.
“Don’t worry about it,” she grimaces and moves to step past her. “Just go.”
“Wait!” Asakusa shouts.
That’s when it happens. Her arm juts out and it’s almost as if Kanamori is watching in slow motion as Asakusa’s hand circles around her wrist to keep her still. Kanamori’s blood runs cold.
Asakusa’s hand. She can feel it.
The world is still trapped in slow motion as Kanamori glares down at Asakusa’s fingers wrapped around her. It’s not the good kind of slow motion that’s used to accentuate a cool scene in a movie. Instead, it’s the bad kind of slow motion that’s filled with dread like when a parent sees their child in the middle of a street right as a car comes barreling around the corner and they know, in just mere seconds, something truly bad may happen. But in Kanamori and Asakusa’s case, something bad has already happened. That’s why, when she feels the touch that hasn’t been there for years, Kanamori wants to scream.
Her breath staggers instead and she yanks her arm away with a sharp hiss as if she’s been burned and cradles her wrist with her other hand as if to soothe it. She takes several steps back, gawking at Asakusa with wide, terrified, confused eyes.
“What,” she demands, “did you just do?”
Kanamori doesn’t go home. Neither of them do. She knows Asakusa doesn’t have a place of her own, she couldn’t possibly, and Kanamori isn’t about to bring her back to her apartment. So they sit in a park only a couple of blocks away from the street they had been on before.
They’re the only ones there as they sit alone on a bench, illuminated by lamps that adorn the park’s perimeter. Kanamori furiously taps her foot, unsure if she’s capable of keeping still with the way her mind and body are buzzing. Next to her, Asakusa has kept quiet which is good, because she doesn’t think she wants to hear her speak unless she’s giving a proper explanation. And Kanamori desperately needs a proper explanation, because what just happened should have never been possible.
How had she been able to feel Asakusa’s touch? Seeing her face, hearing her voice, those are all things of their own. Things that are perfectly capable of being imagined. But the warmth of a hand pressing against her and enveloping her skin so that she can actually, physically feel it? That’s something entirely new. Kanamori is used to seeing ghosts, but she isn’t used to any of those ghosts becoming real.
“Like I told you,” Asakusa interrupts her thoughts, “I don’t get it either.”
Kanamori takes a deep breath, namely to keep herself steady. “A cruel joke from the universe is all I can chalk it up to be.”
“Is it really so cruel to reunite old friends?”
Kanamori doesn’t respond. She knows if she opens her mouth to answer that question, she’ll release a diatribe so full of spite and venom, it would burn a hole right through her tongue.
They sit in silence for another minute before Asakusa tries to break the ice again.
“So, uh… do you live around here? You were on your way home, right? Were you at work or school?”
“The latter,” Kanamori grumbles.
“Oh, really? You’re in university now, right? What are you studying? Let me guess, something about business.” Kanamori can hear a smile in her voice and it only makes her stomach twist.
“Am I that obvious?” She sighs.
Asakusa laughs. “As expected of you, Kanamori-kun!”
Kanamori bristles at her laughter. It’s such a familiar sound, but she can’t take comfort in it. She can’t sit here and pretend she’s okay with the familiarity of the situation, like the past few years hadn’t happened. Her displeasure must be apparent because Asakusa falls quiet.
The air shifts and the tense feeling Kanamori had been feeling from the start seems to catch up with the rest of the world.
“Listen,” Asakusa begins in a serious tone, “I know none of this makes sense—to either of us. But I want you to know I didn’t do this on purpose. It’s not like I wanted to… haunt you. It’s not like I know how any of this is possible. All I do know is that, somehow, I’m here.”
“Yeah,” Kanamori replies almost bitterly, “You’re here.”
Asakusa hums. “Right. So… what now?”
Kanamori can’t stay at the park all night so she eventually goes home. She doesn’t tell Asakusa to follow her, but she supposes she doesn’t need to because, undoubtedly, there she is, right over her shoulder for the remainder of her walk.
There’s so much Kanamori can’t make sense of regarding this situation. It’s illogical, impossible, and frankly, it’s quite awful and she’s pissed. This is the last thing she wants to deal with today or ever. Of all people, why does she have to be the one to get Asakusa Midori’s ghost in her apartment while she struggles to convince herself that she’s not losing her mind?
This isn’t something she could have ever anticipated at all and she figures it’s only a matter of time before something goes horribly wrong. As a million things run through Kanamori’s head, she can’t help but think back to the question Asakusa had asked her in the park.
What now? She has no idea.