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When Usagi looks in the mirror, she doesn't see herself. Instead, she sees everyone she has ever loved. She is a puzzle, a mosaic consisting of all those small pieces created by many people at different stages of her life.
She wears her hair short, because that's how her mother used to wear it when she was still alive, cut just above chin-length and held back with a bandana sometimes.
She wears the perfume gifted to her for the first time by her former best friend, a girl that moved away when they were both sixteen. She hasn't seen or even spoken to her in many years, but she still wears the scent because she likes it and because it makes her think of home.
Her favorite jacket, the one she wears the most and the only one she gets fixed by a tailor from time to time, is the dark brown jacket her father used to wear. It's big and heavy and it smells heady, like cedar wood and leather and it keeps her warm even on the coldest of winter nights. She never gives it away, not even that one time when Arisu forgets his own jacket at home and has to hunch down miserably against the sudden bout of rain.
Usagi eats spaghetti on Thursdays because of that one year in college when she had to do one big semester-long assignment with that one Italian exchange student who not only taught her how to make the perfect Bolognese sauce, but also helped her deliver the best paper in her whole college career.
Her favorite movie is one she watched for the first time when her aunt broke her leg in three different places, and they took in Usagi's cousin until she was better. Her favorite song got played on repeat during her first part-time job because one of her colleagues had just gone through a divorce and was inconsolable. She had hated that song for a while, but with enough distance, she learned to appreciate it for the beautiful piece of art it was. And her favorite sweets are the mochi her grandmother used to make.
Her PIN number is the phone number of her best friend from third grade, and she wears a shirt to bed that used to belong to her ex-boyfriend who is now married with a child on the way. She knows that there are phrases and idioms she uses solely because her teacher in middle school used to impress them onto her with her wits and her kindness.
Every winter, she listens to a playlist made by a girl Usagi met when she decided she wanted to learn how to play the clarinet one year, and she knows that she only knows how okayu tastes because that neighbor who won't talk to her anymore brought her some when she was sick.
She sometimes wonders if, in the same way she has kept these people as part of her life long after she stopped talking to them, she is also a part of other people's lives like that.
Recently however, she had to add a few people to her list. People she's still seeing, but who've become such an integral part of her life that she couldn't imagine her days not being filled by the remnants they've already left in her life.
She sees Ann in the way she holds herself now, her head a little higher, her gait even more brisk than before. Sees her in the red lipstick she wears from time to time when she wants to feel strong and invincible, and in the books on feminism piling high on her nightstand.
She sees Tatta in the way she tries to see things in a more positive light. In the way she smiles more these days, and stops to appreciate the small things in life, like the flowers blooming in the tiny garden across the street and the street musician playing close to her favorite café whenever she goes to get herself a coffee. Sees it in the cans of sour beer she sometimes buys to share with him and in the treats she keeps on her shelf for his dog Kumo.
She sees Arisu in the way she tries to see both sides whenever she gets angry at somebody on TV, whenever she stops and takes a breath or three before she reacts to someone taunting her. Sees him in the way she trusts people more, in the way she wants to open up to them and wants to feel involved. Sees him in the fact that she owns a bike now and that she even knows how to ride it because he taught her how.
She sees Kuina in the way she's unapologetically herself most days, not trying to change herself for anybody. In the way she dares to speak louder and laugh longer and in the way she fights harder for the things that are important to her. In the way she likes pineapple on pizza now, because Kuina had started that particular discussion and won it by a landslide.
She sees Niragi in the way her sense of humor has turned a little more biting, a little more sarcastic. In the way she's been eating more dark chocolate than before, the way she keeps concept art in her apartment now, from games she's never played but likes the style of, and in the way she has two piercings in her left ear.
Usagi is a mosaic of all the people she has loved and of all the people she still loves, and she thinks she's beautiful like that.