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1. a red scarf
[It’s one of the many things from Chifuyu and his friends, and she’s not really sure, but she thinks it must be from Chifuyu. Last winter Baji had gifted him his own scarf, red and plaided, because Chifuyu’d forgotten his and was cold. She’s pretty sure it’s the repayment. It’s too early, and she doesn’t dare look at it for too long, but she’s placed it inside her drawer beside her own yellow scarf, and she plans on wearing it eventually. It’s soft, and nice, and it smells almost like Baji: It smells like Chifuyu.]
2. a clearly used edition of the first volume of the manga series Yu-Gi-Oh!
[Also from the out-of-place cardboard box from Chifuyu and his friends, but it has a little note inside. It reads: Happy birthday, Baji!! I hope you like this! I did, so I thought you probably will too =^) -Pah. Pah. He’s another friend of Baji and Chifuyu, that she knows. Baji isn’t— wasn’t one to talk about his friends much, except for Chifuyu, but she knows about the photo of them he’s been keeping in his wallet all those years, about the little talisman tag, and about all their names on the back of the picture. She’s not interested in mangas herself, so she’ll gift it to someone when the right time comes, but she thinks she might keep the little note in the same cardboard box she’s put away all of Baji’s most prized possessions, including the photo of them all grinning with wrinkles around their lips and their smiles so wide their eyes are nearly closed.]
3. a yellow and black volleyball
[She’s not sure who’s it from—it isn’t wrapped in gift paper, nor has any note or writing on it. It looks new, though, somewhat expensive. Considering that most of the things are labeled, and none of them have the name Draken anywhere, she figures it must be from him. Baji’s told her a few things about him: he lives in a brothel, he’s tall and bulky, and he’s kind of like her. She’s never been sure what to do of that, but she still remembers the softness in Baji’s eyes whenever he’d compared him to her. So it’s probably a good thing, and she’s glad the friends he’s left behind still have someone looking out for them.]
4. a self-knitted (?) black and yellow sweater, and a pack of sweets
[It wasn’t wrapped in anything, but it came with a note. Happy birthday!! The candies are from Hakkai, he wishes you a happy birthday too :) -Mitsuya. Another of the boys on Baji’s picture. It’s almost in the same shades as the volleyball, and she wonders if it’s a coincidence that they share a color scheme with Baji’s toman jacket. The sweater almost fits her, and it’s comfortable, and soft, and warm, but it has a little too many holes and safety pins for her taste. It looks similar to Baji’s black and gray sweater, just a little cooler, even. She wonders if Mitsuya’s sewed Baji’s toman jacket, and she wonders if he could sew her something that reminds her of Baji in a better way than the wooly sweater she’s pushed into the far back of her wardrobe.]
5. a dragon ash album, and a canned pocari sweat
[The only things actually wrapped in gift paper. Not that she minds, but it’s something that stands out like a sore thumb. It’s baby blue paper with white clouds, and it has a single word written on a white paper sticker: Haru. He’s not on Baji’s picture, but she remembers Baji talking about him a lot when he was still a little kid. Mikey, Haru, sometimes Emma or Senju, that’s all she’d ever heard—until, suddenly, Baji’d only talked about Mikey, and soon enough Kazutora, Draken, Mitsuya, and Pah. At some point it’s become only Chifuyu. But it seems like Haru’d still cared for him the way Baji must’ve cared for him one day.]
6. a blue letter
[It’s plain light blue, with a tiny heart behind Baji’s name. So small she missed it the first few times she’s looked at it, only noticed on the fourth—she’s been keeping count—when she held it close to her face to smell the paper. It’s ordinary. The paper is very thin, and when she held it in front of a flashlight, she managed to make out a written letter, and a photograph inside. She couldn’t see much, but she knows it enough to recognise it: It’s Baji and Chifuyu, arms over each other’s shoulders, a single shared red scarf around their necks. It’s winter, and they’re both grinning. She’s been keeping a secret copy in her room for over a year now. She’s not sure what to do, suddenly owning two of them.]
7. a few men’s fashion magazines (all but one distinctively not in baji’s style, but all different in different styles anyway)
[They were all neatly stacked in the box, worn out tape around them to keep them together. There was a note on top, too, saying, From one not-so fashion guy to another, hope they’re good enough! -Peh. She looks through them sometimes, they’re nothing interesting. There’s colored shirts and plain pants and bright red shoes and extra long ties and dyed hair and safety pins and knitted tops and see-through sweaters. Most things wouldn’t have been to Baji’s taste, but she supposes that that doesn’t matter now. It probably wouldn’t have mattered if he was still alive, either. He would’ve smiled at Peh, patted him on the shoulder, and stored the magazines away under his bed. His friends could’ve gifted him a moldy apple, and he would’ve cherished it more than himself.]
8. a letter with a hand-drawn tiger on the front
[It must be from Kazutora, she thinks. Tora, tiger, it only makes sense. The tiger on the cover is angry, it screams, shows its teeth, its claws. Angry. She is angry. Angry at herself, at the world, at his friends, at Baji. But she doesn’t scream and cry and tear. She lies in her bed at night, tears caught in her throat, a yell in her eyes, but she doesn’t burst. She doesn’t let go. She doesn’t sleep at night. The paper the letter is made of is thick, not see-through, and she supposes Kazutora doesn’t have a picture of them anyway. She swears to never open it. She doesn’t want to, in the first place, and she thinks that some things are better left private.]
9. a pack of yaki-soba
[She knows it’s from Chifuyu, she knows they’ve always shared. Still, she ate it, the day after Chifuyu brought it in the carboard box that was too big for his body and too heavy for his heart. She stared at the pictures of Baji at the wall while eating, cried silent tears into the noodles. They tastes too salty. Too familiar. She puked all the contents of her stomach out before she went to bed that day, too sick of everything circling in her head. She’d just eaten Baji’s share. Chifuyu’s share. She’d just eaten while Baji, her son, was lying dead at the coroner’s. She’d just lived. Dared to. Every time she thinks of yaki-soba, she feels nauseous.]
10. a worn copy of the second volume of Battle Angel Alita
[She’s seen Chifuyu and Baji reading the first book together, so she figures it must be from him. It’s clearly worn, loved, with a coffee stain, and the cover coming off at the top left corner. It has nice art, but it’s not really her preferred literature, so she lays it to rest inside the box with Baji’s other supposed gifts. Right on the top, beaming in yellow and red. Toman and blood. Or something like that.]
11. a detailed toy train missing the left front wheel
[It’s from Mikey. His name is written on its white top in black marker, washed out, but still visible enough to read. She can tell it’s old. A childhood favorite of his, maybe. It’s not even good enough for a collector, with the marker and the missing wheel, and she wonders why Mikey has nothing else to give. Maybe he’s poor. Maybe it was Baji’s favorite. Maybe his real gift would’ve been self-cooked dinner. The train is almost as long as her arm, but only half as thick. It’s mostly white, some light blue here and there, black wheels. It looks like something Baji would’ve loved. As a kid, especially, but even now.]
12. a letter with a big red SORRY on it
[This one says Kazutora on the back, in small, red letters. Red. She hopes Kazutora’d run out of other ink to spell, hopes he’d forgotten, had made a mistake. Surely, he doesn’t want to die. Not with his friend dead. Not with her son dead. With Baji dead. Surely, Kazutora knows he deserves life as much as Baji does. The letter was buried under Kazutora’s other letter, under the stack of Peh’s magazines, under Mitsuya’s sweater. When she first looked at it, she was almost too scared to hold it in her hands, turn it over. She is both really curious about what it says, but appalled of whatever is written inside it. It cannot possibly be happy, yet she hopes it is. Maybe this is all a joke. The letter, Baji’s death, everything. She wonders how his friends are doing, and how Kazutora has ever been so close to her dead son.]
13. a (tasty!) self-made onigiri, and a bar of chocolate
[She ate them both on the day of Chifuyu knocking at her door to gift her their carboard box in his stead. They were lying at the very top, grinning at her in odd happiness. Not that an onigiri could be feeling anything. There was a note stuck on top, now resting with the other notes from his gifts, which reads, cause you like food so much ^_^ -Emma. Emma, one of his very first childhood friends. She’s glad they’re still close. The onigiri was very tasty, the chocolate bar a tad too sweet, but to Baji’s liking. She didn’t puke up either of them, pretended they came in the mail for her. She’s never seen him eating self-made onigiris anyway, unless they were hers. It’s ironic how Emma’s gift are at the bottom of her list, when she’s seen, touched, and consumed them first. She kept forgetting them until the very end. Perhaps, she thinks, she can forget to grieve one day as well.]