Chapter Text
She was looking uncertain at a contact on her phone. She remembered well when she got that number — how could she forget? — her senpai with the fish bow and Hanako's brother dumping a water bucket on her head?
Any other day she would be asking herself why she did not erase that contact right then and there but at that moment she was just glad that she didn't.
Steeling her nerves, she pressed 'call.'
"Hyuuga-senpai, its Yashiro Nene. I have a question for you and Nanamine-senpai!"
Despite her misgivings, things went well. Hyuuga Natsuhiko was way less dumb when she was focused enough to stop his meanderings and Nanamine was genuinely helpful.
After one last phone call she marched to school ready to enact the craziest plan of her life.
Funny how, after so many stupid plans to make her confessions and get herself a boyfriend, now that she kind of had one she was making a plan that was bound to tear them apart. She had struggled and tried to change herself in the name of a fantasy, an ideal of what she thought love should be, still, actually being in love was what changed her, and way more than she ever expected. He wasn't her type, yet her type became him. If once she would have been glad to be a damsel, always protected and cared for, now she longed to be the protector — not that she didn't like when Hanako came to save her, but the mere memory of his eyes scrunched up in pain or sadness made her chest hurt and the impulse to jump in and fend off whoever hurt him was almost uncontrollable. If once she would have given anything to be together with the target of her affections, now she was ready to give that up to ensure that he had a shot at living his dreams.
She really did love him, didn't she?
From her locker, she made her way to the old building, crossing Aoi on the way. Her best friend greeted her like normal but she could see the faint tremble of Aoi's lips, the misty eyes as she looked at her. Aoi would have surely hugged her if it wasn't for the small white hitodama, Hanako's hakujoudai, following her since she had crossed the school gates. Any unusual thing they did under the watch of hakujoudai could clue Hanako in to her plan so they parted like nothing was amiss and she kept her track to the girl's bathroom.
Meeting Hanako was a bit of a risk. He was too good at reading her, and she was a terrible liar, but she couldn't not meet him for what could very well be the last time.
"Yashiro!"
Hanako threw himself at her right as she opened the door to his bathroom, but that time she was waiting for him with her arms wide open. She hugged him back as fiercely as he did her and hid her face on the crook of his neck as he spun them around a couple of times enjoying the feel of him close to her even if his cold body gave her goosebumps.
Still, there was a reason why she considered meeting him as risky.
"Not that I'm complaining" started Hanako, still very much conscious of the reaction his last unfair complaint landed him. "But you don't usually arrive this early at school, did you fall off your bed today?"
"Nope, I just really wanted to see you." It wasn't a lie. Actually, she noticed it was painfully true as she said it. That remark also gifted her with one of Hanako's rare moments of speechlessness, his brows shooting up and jaw dropping a bit as his cheeks took a faint pinkish hue. He clearly hadn't expected such a direct response.
That spurred her on as she added "I love you, Hanako-kun" and kissed him, long and slow.
She delighted in his surprise, in the second it took him to respond, in the way his hands stuttered before one of them found its place at the back of her neck.
Their little bubble was burst only when a chime announced Nene was late for class.
The two startled apart but remained in each other's arms and, despite being late, Nene made no effort to disentangle from him.
"I love you too, Yashiro" said Hanako finally, giving her a quick peck on the lips. "Good class" added him releasing her.
Maybe she had really stunned him, maybe she was just lucky, but no hakujoudai followed her so she picked up Sumire's bracelet from her backpack and stopped by the old art room instead of going to her class.
~~~~~~~~~~
She almost jumped as her phone showed a message notification. She opened Nene's contact with trepidation.
'He isn't watching
I'm going early'
Then, after a pause, 'Sorry'
Her hands shook. She couldn't cry. She couldn't show any distress. She couldn't give away what was happening lest lord Seventh discover it too early.
"Excuse me..."
She saw no tsueshiro around...
"Stop!"
It was surprising — maybe it shouldn't have been, after all he had picked up on her distress just then — how fast Akane picked up on her suggestion. She turned to see a very startled and very worried Akane, donning his clock keeper garbs.
"Ao-chan, what—"
"She's gonne already, save your minutes. We may need them."
~~~~~~~~~~
He wanted to confort her, say everything was gonna be fine but he could still remember how Aoi shook like a leaf, eyes full of tears, as she explained to him what Yashiro had planned, what she had accepted to help her best friend with, so he didn't. If Aoi was willing to shoulder all that pain he would hold his own to make sure he didn't put their plan in jeopardy by wasting his minutes.
Both teens looked back to the front of the class, letting time run again and apologizing for their disturbance, him offering to take Aoi to the nurse, his glasses held too uncharacteristically low on his nose. Throughout the way to the old building, both kept an eye out for any sign of a white hitodama signaling lord Seventh's surveillance.
~~~~~~~~~~
"Shijima-san!"
"Yashiro-san, hi! Any reason for this visit? You don't usually come here after all" asked Shijima unbothered, smiling at her from behind her canvas.
"Yes, can we get inside your boundary? Now?"
If she was taken by surprise, Shijima didn't show much. With a couple more strikes of her paintbrush the world around the two changed a bit to what she recognized as the atelier inside the tower in Shijima's painted world.
"So what did you want to talk about, Yashiro-san?"
"I'm sorry!"
"Uhm?"
"You said you would support me because I had the same dream as your creator, but I..."
"Your dream changed" said Shijima. She didn't seem too surprised.
"It's not that I want to die but—"
"Your dream now is for lord Seventh, right?"
She just nodded. "Would you... still support me if that was the case?"
"If there's anything I can do, I'll do it."
She was surprised at the calm Shijima showed, but she was on a time crunch.
"I want to save him."
"As in?"
"I want to stop Yugi Amane from becoming Hanako-kun."
That gave Shijima pause. It would have been funny if the situation was any less serious.
"But that's impos—"
"It's not!"
She had been prepared, she took the spaceship keychain she brought with her from the time she met the living Hanako, the proof she somehow had gotten to him, and explained to Shijima how she got to his past and how her seniors, Hyuuga and Nanamine, explained how she got to the nowhere that time on their tea party.
"So you want to get to nowhere through the cracks of my boundary?"
"That's the idea" admited her meekly. Even if it had been her idea, hearing it out loud made it seem a bit far-fetched.
"Lord Seventh will have my head for this" ironically Shijima seemed more amused by the prospect than anything.
That said, Shijima did guide her to the limits of her boundary. It was unnervingly easy after all the trouble she had gone through back in the painted world with Shijima and Hanako himself as enemies.
"If you fall here..." suggested Shijima pointing to the deep water just a couple steps away from where they stood, where it seemed even the light could not reach.
She nodded, determined, 'ok, I got this.'
"Shijima-san, thank you!" said her bowing her head back at the artist.
"You're welcome, Yashiro-san. It was a pleasure. I hope you succeed in what you wish to do, good luck!"
~~~~~~~~~~
"Yashiro!"
It was as if a stone had settled on his stomach. One moment Yashiro had been there, he could feel her through their bond, she was somewhere nearby, at school, the next he could not tell anymore, like she had disappeared from the face of the earth. It felt painfully similar to when Tsukasa had gotten to her in the past, the mere thought making him shudder despite not being alive to feel cold.
What if he had found her again? He did save her from number Three's boundary and didn't seem interested during their time in number Four's, but what if he changed his mind. His brother was nothing if not unpredictable.
He was so desperate calling for his hakujoudai to don his cape in his dash to the last place he felt Yashiro's presence that he almost missed the couple of intruders right by his bathroom's door.
And, then, nothing.
~~~~~~~~~~
She released the breath she didn't notice she had been holding as Akane froze the ghost boy. They had gotten to lord Seventh's territory just in time.
"I hope Nene-chan gets where she needs to go before your power runs out Akane-kun."
"What do we do if she doesn't, Ao-chan?"
'It'll be up to me then' thought her steeling herself, looking at the worry frozen in the expression of the ghost.
~~~~~~~~~~
She woke up at a familiar place.
The countless doors leading to nowhere and everywhere as Hanako had once described. She took the keychain from her pocket.
'Please, oh please, let me find that door again!'
She knew it was futile, but once Hanako used their bond to find her. At that moment, she was hoping that same bond could lead her back to the him that last held that spaceship keychain.
And she dashed.
She didn't go around opening doors this time. She went on watching them, focusing her ears, and praying. She wanted that same place, that same time. She needed to meet that same boy.
Maybe it was because she was purposefully searching for that, but when she heard the chime of the school's afternoon announcement it sounded like a divine choir, and, once again, behind one of the doors around her was the door to a classroom from the old building.
She approached carefully, almost afraid the door would disappear if she touched it, and rested her ear against it, making sure it was the source of the sound.
She felt the trepidation as she opened it...
Even if she was expecting it, seeing the late afternoon glow inside the room was still jarring considering she had just arrived in the morning back in her time. She considered looking for a date, but that was the one thing she hadn't really planned for. She knew things here and there about Hanako's death, but the exact date wasn't one of them, even if it was for this plan she felt like it would be the same as breaking their promisse if she went ahead and looked him up before he decided to tell her his secrets. 'Well, so much for that. Our time's up.'
However, before she could spiral into panic, she noticed a familiar mess close to the window. Books, papers scrambled and torn, and, if she closed her eyes, she could almost see the young boy crying hidden by the curtains.
"Hanako-kun..." She felt a lump on her throat. She knew it then, she had succeeded.
Holding back her tears in favor of a practical approach she picked up the scattered books, careful to not damage them even more, and put them on her backpack, running away from the classroom on the trail of the boy she knew couldn't have gone too far.
'Just you wait, Hanako-kun, this time I will be the one to protect you!'
~~~~~~~~~~
Blinking had never felt that disorientating before, and he almost fell to the ground as his momentum caught up to him.
"Wha—Yashiro!" gasped him as the movement brought back his previous sense of urgency. That's when he noticed his company and his mind supplied a conclusion, one he was none too glad to reach. He turned to Yashiro's classmate with a murderous glare. "What did you think you were doing, number One?" He almost hissed ready to pounce on the redhead when her best friend got herself on the way, arms raised to protect the boy behind her.
"Nene-chan asked me to stop you for a bit, it's not Akane-kun's fault!"
If he was expecting an explanation, it surely wasn't that.
"What!?"
"She asked me to give you this if you tried to go after her" said the girl giving him an envelope.
He opened it mostly on auto pilot and as soon as he recognized her carefully calligraphy the world around him fell into silence.
'Hanako-kun,
I'm sorry
Ever since we came back from the far shore I have been thinking a lot. About me, about you, and about what it means to have a future, and not to.
You said back in the far shore that if you could keep me alive our meeting would mean something even if you couldn't stay by my side for long.
Now that I accepted that I'm really not going to be around all that long either I actually think I understand you a little bit.
Because I also want to leave something of me in you after we part.
I won't say that I don't have any regrets anymore. That I don't have dreams I wanted to fulfill. But I can live with those.
I can die with them.
I can't die with the fact that I'll leave you behind alone inside that bathroom for however long you still feel like you need to repent.
That's one regret I can't deal with.
Tsuchigomori-sensei told me, back when he showed me his yorishiro, that the future in the books can't be changed, but did he ever tell you what your future was supposed to be?
The books say I'll die, but they also said you would live.
Maybe I'm stupid. Maybe I'm crazy. The only way we could have ever met is like this, with you as a ghost and me nearing death.
But if we were never meant to meet as living people, why do I remember the heat of your skin on mine?
Do you remember, Hanako-kun, back when you were alive, one day that you ran away from a strange girl that just jumped at you without rhyme nor reason, the day you lost a spaceship keychain?
Meeting you felt like a coincidence but maybe it was destiny that a dying girl would fall for a ghost boy. If we hadn't met I'd just die one day without notice, never having fulfilled any of my dreams. But you changed my world, and even if I'm still gonna die, I now have one dream I can still fulfill.
I wanna go back and make the future in that book come true.
Even if by doing that I may lose the you that I fell in love with.
Goodbye,
Nene'
A drop of water falling to the page and blurring Yashiro's name shook him up and he noticed people had been calling him, for some time probably. Still, it didn't matter, he lifted his head and closed his eyes feeling the tears running down his cheeks as he focused on his bond with Yashiro sending his hakujoudai after her.
~~~~~~~~~~
She ran. She ran with all her might. She had no idea how far ahead of her Hanako — no, he was still Amane then — was. She supposed it shouldn't be too much, the sun hadn't set yet so it shouldn't be too long after the moment he left back when she last saw him. Still, she was almost at the school gates and no sign of Amane.
She felt a light tug at her hair as she crossed the gates.
"Yashiro! Wait!"
She knew that voice.
"Hanako-kun?" She turned around to see the red hakujoudai hanging onto her hair, the single lock of hair still inside the school perimeter.
He stayed silent for a moment and she made to step back.
"No, wait! Don't go where I can't follow, please!"
She was surprised at the desperate tone of Hanako's voice.
"You won't... drag me back?"
At her meek question she heard a self-deprecating snigger.
"I'm an earthbound spirit, Yashiro. I can't affect anything outside the school perimeter, ever. No matter how much I want to."
And she could definitely feel how much he did want to reach her then.
"I'm sorry, Hanako-kun, but I have to do this."
"Didn't you just criticize me for doing things exactly like this? For going off and trying to solve shit my own way regardless of what you wanted! Aren't you a hypocrite, Yashiro!?"
Guilty as charged, still, she retorted "I'm not killing your best friend to try to save you at least."
She knew it was a petty response. She knew, for all he annoyed her, that he was completely right about that point, she had made a plan right up his alley and done to him what he had done to her at the severance. She just refrained from risking anyone other than herself.
"And so what, Yashiro!?" She never heard him screech like that. "Kinda easy for you to do that, I don't have anyone left! Besides you, dammit! You are my best friend! You are the only person I've cared about in fifty years! My past was not a walk in the park! I died at thirteen! You must have noticed something was wrong! You could get yourself killed!"
"I know. But I'm already going to die anyway, so it won't matter."
"Of course it will! It matters to me!" She could feel the deep exhaustion in his voice as he continued. "Yashiro, please, give this up."
"I won't."
"Do you even know what you're doing? If you get back inside the school I can just drag you back, you know?"
Even she knew it was an empty threat. Well, wasn't he underestimating her?
"Then I'm not getting back inside the school!"
"And how do you expect to prevent my death if you stay clear from the school?"
"Well, it's not like you died here."
"..."
She could only imagine what face he was making. He had never told her where he had died, and she had always assumed it had been at school. Until she visited the Red House, that is.
"Wha—How did you...?"
His voice sounded uncharacteristically weak at that. It seemed he was out of witty retorts.
"I think I visited your home."
"And that's because...?"
"Back during the severance, Minamoto-senpai told us a family of four died there some fifty years ago and when me and Kou-kun ended up there, we found a kid Tsukasa-kun."
"You went inside that place!?"
"We heard a child calling for help—"
"That was an obvious trap!!! Yashiro, you don't know what you're getting yourself into."
"I know more than you think I do."
"Still not enough."
She noticed the street lights turning on, a sign that she stayed too long talking to Hanako. If she didn't rush she wasn't going to find Amane again.
"Hanako-kun, let me go. Or I'll be too late to give this keychain and books back."
She looked back at the hakujoudai with all the determination she could muster, imagining she could see his face through it.
Hanako took longer than normal to speak.
"Hear me out, Yashiro. Don't go inside that house again and, if possible, don't let Tsukasa see you, specially not around..."
Knowing what he meant even if he couldn't say it, she nodded firmly and the hakujoudai let go of her hair.
"Come back here after you finish what you need to do" pleaded him before she could fully turn away.
And with that she went off.
~~~~~~~~~~
Aoi had tried to stop lord Seventh when he jerked away from Yashiro's letter, but he couldn't let her do it. He knew it was putting their plan at risk, and he knew Aoi would look back at him with that betrayed look, like he had to pick sides and picked the wrong one. But, against everything he thought possible, he had sympathized with the ghost's motives.
Once, months ago, he had spat at the ghost boy who was technically his boss that he hated apparitions because they didn't care for humans. He even later chastised Yashiro about being too trusting of said ghost. But, seeing him reading her letter, he knew he would be reacting the exact same way if it were him and Aoi. He would be fully ready to have her hate him to make sure she couldn't exchange her life for his.
Funny how he was ready to help Yashiro throw her life away for an unfeeling monster, he was even excited to watch as the great lord Seventh fumbled with the antics of his assistant, but he couldn't do it anymore after seeing the monster cry for her.
He hadn't thought the apparition was capable of so much emotion but — despair, self-loathing, fear, sadness, shock, defeat — he was an open book as he grappled in his one-sided conversation with Yashiro. He wasn't lord Seventh anymore, Hanako was just the ghost of a boy who lost everything and was desperately trying not to lose the one last person he still cared about. And he understood, even if a reasonably big part of himself thought it was well deserved for the ghost who tried to get Aoi killed.
He watched as the ghost's voice quieted and finally let go of Aoi as they saw him drop his head on his palms, bending over one of the sinks, and mutter a faint "please don't get yourself killed" over and over, like a prayer.
Aoi approached him then.
"You won't drag Nene-chan back?"
"That's what you guys wanted, wasn't it?" It was clear his tone meant to be poisonous, but he simply couldn't muster the strength to make it so. "I can't, unless she lets me do it."
He exchanged a look with her before their attention was dragged back to the ghost.
"You've clearly already played your parts, what more are you hoping to see here? Out!"
Despite the lack of energy behind it, it was still an order from the boss of Kamome Academy's mysteries and, feeling the ghost deserved his little bit of privacy, he let himself and Aoi back out of the old building.
"Akane-kun... Do you think Nene-chan will be alright?"
He wanted to reassure her, he really did, but...
"I don't know."
He felt bad seeing Aoi's eyes filling with tears but he couldn't lie. For all he hated the ghost boy, his distress was a good indicator of the danger Yashiro was in. Also, she was trying to change the past, bring someone back from the dead. She was trying to achieve the impossible. He was a clock keeper and even he couldn't pretend it didn't seem like a lost cause. So he did what he could and hugged Aoi, trying to calm her worries.
"But Ao-chan, if you are this upset why did you help her do it?" It was a sincere question, he was still trying to understand her thought process behind that decision.
"During Obon I chose to die and lied to all of you. I did everything for my own selfish reasons and pushed all of you away. I even hurt you and Nene-chan to get what I wanted. Still, Nene-chan tried to give up her own life to save me, even if she didn't want to die. Now, Nene-chan chose to risk everything for the one person she fell in love with. She is being selfish, like I was, ignoring what everyone else wants, but instead of lying and doing things alone she decided to rely on me. She relied on me even after I broke her trust. I couldn't refuse to help her. I want to believe this has to be for the best. I mean she doesn't need to die to save him, right?"
Aoi seemed to be trying to reassure herself instead of seeking his opinion so he just hugged her tighter. He hoped Yashiro knew what she was doing.
~~~~~~~~~~
She was running again. It seemed she had just spent the entire day running, the darkening sky not helping her impressions in the least. She did not know the route Amane would have taken to get home but she knew the general direction of his house so she headed there, hoping her luck hadn't run out for the day but already mentally apologizing to Hanako for considering ignoring his advice.
She saw the house and promptly stumbled on someone who was turning the corner.
"Auch! Really, Nene, why can't you pay attention..." She couldn't believe her own stupidity as she grumbled insults under her breath, that is, until she looked up at the person she almost ran over and met familiar wide amber eyes. "Ah! You!" She couldn't contain the yell, nor the finger pointing. The boy visibly flinched. "Hana—Amane-kun!"
"You, how do you know my name!?"
She just pointed to his identification tag.
"Oh, stupid question" said him breaking eye contact. He seemed to be considering what were his chances of escaping her.
It was strange, seeing how he shrank onto himself as if trying to make himself seem smaller, as if trying to fade into the background, so different from the — actually invisible but expansive — Hanako she knew. Still, her joy at the coincidence of finding him and still having the chance of heeding Hanako's warning kept her mind on track.
"I'm Yashiro Nene. Here." She offered him the keychain she had kept for months. For him it hadn't been more than a couple of hours at most.
His eyes lit up at the trinket and he took it on both hands seeming less flighty.
"I thought I had lost it! Thanks! Wait, did you come all this way just to give this back?"
"Actually, I brought the books you left behind too..."
At that he came back from his high and the embarrassment hit him like a truck, blood rising to his cheeks as he stammered.
"B-but how did you know where I live?"
"I-I didn't, I just live around h-here and was planning on giving them back to you tomorrow" answered her, half plaguing her stuttering half commending her fast thinking as she opened her backpack to get the books.
"Thank you, Yashiro-san" said Amane, again turning his head away as he packed his books. She internally panicked. If she was to intervene she would need to get him to open up to her. She couldn't let their interaction end like that. As she was racking her brain for an excuse to keep him there she heard him speak again. "Will I... see you tomorrow?"
He sounded shy, but his voice carried a hint of barely concealed hope. She smiled.
"Of course! We're friends now, aren't we, Amane-kun?"
She was struck by a sense of déjà vu as he turned to her stunned before showing the sweetest smile she ever saw on him, not at all unlike what a certain ghost once did after she first called him 'Hanako-kun.' That was when it really dawned on her how the two of them were one and the same.
The déjà vu feeling continued, however, in a way somber direction, as both were startled back by a cry.
"Amane-Amane!"
The boy, very much identical to Amane, jumped on his back, arms closing around his neck, and Amane flinched, expression as void and terrified as Hanako's the first time she saw Tsukasa. The fear lasted a second before Amane schooled his expression in what she could clearly identify as a fake show of self-control. Her heart broke for him.
"Amane, who's she?"
Tsukasa's question brought her back to the present, and Amane looked back from his brother to her. She couldn't decide if she really felt something wrong with Tsukasa's tone or if she was apprehensive just due to their past encounters, but something in Amane's eyes as he spoke told her the chill she felt wasn't a baseless reaction.
"She's just a classmate, she came to give me back my keys."
Classmate, not friend. She wanted to say it stung, it didn't. She also wanted to stay and push Tsukasa away from Amane, but she remembered the request she just botched and thought better of it.
With a heavy heart she cut her losses and decided to come back better prepared next time.
"Y-yep, see you tomorrow, Yugi-kun!"
She had a ghost to interrogate.
~~~~~~~~~~
How many hours had it been?
After number One and Yashiro's friend left he thought he had heard the school bell but he wasn't sure, he was not in the habit of counting time when Yashiro wasn't around. He had no estimate of how long she would take to find, well, him and come back to the school. Hell, he didn't even know if she would come back like he asked her to.
He hugged his knees tighter.
"Oi, Hanako!"
Hidden by the stall divisions, he ignored the Kid's greeting half hoping he would think he wasn't there.
He had no such luck.
"Hanako, are you there? Did you see Senpai?"
The question felt like a gut punch and he groaned, unwittingly giving away his presence to the boy.
"Hey, Hanako... are you okay?" asked the Kid worried as he opened his door but he wasn't given an answer.
At that exact moment his hakujoudai picked up on her heavy breathing. Yashiro was back. He was up before he even noticed.
"Yashiro!"
"Hanako-kun!" She leaned on the school gates, still very much out of perimeter, he noticed bitterly. However, she seemed off somehow, less cheery than before.
"Yashiro, are you okay? Did something happen? Are you hurt?"
"Hanako-kun, I'm sorry..."
"Wha—"
"Tsukasa-kun saw me."
"Are you okay!? Did he do anything to you!?"
"No, he just... we didn't even really talk to one another he just saw me talking to... well... it's strange talking to you about... you..." explained Yashiro meekly.
He repressed a shudder at the thought of what that meeting with his brother might mean to old him and — God forbid — to Yashiro but was soon rolling his eyes at her antics. "Don't you tell. You put yourself in that situation, Yashiro."
"He looked exactly like you did when Tsukasa-kun ruined my donuts that one time."
Did she want to kill him today? Was that just an elaborate payback for the severance? He schooled his expression, controlled the breathing he didn't need to take, and forced the lid closed on that one mental box of memories like he had been doing for fifty odd years.
"I thought we had gone through that already, we kinda are the same person." Despite his attempt, his voice still sounded too weak for confort.
"Are you okay, Hanako-kun?" Of course she had to pick up on it.
"Of course I am! So, what did you need me for? You didn't come back here running just to chit-chat and if you wanted me to bring you back you wouldn't have stayed outside the school perimeter."
So much for his deflection. Even he winced at the bitterness on his tone as he finished.
"Hanako-kun..."
"What do you think? It's been fifty years, Yashiro. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into but I know exactly how things went. I've been dead for half a century. Why do you need to poke at this now? Why is it even possible?"
"I don't really know if it's possible or not. I just wanna try, like you did with my lifespan."
"That's different! It's the future! And, even then, you know how that mess ended up!" said him trying no to choke on the lump forming on his throat. Yes, he regretted the pain he put her through, but accepting that he had failed and that she was going to die sooner rather than later was a thought he evaded even on his best days. That day was, most definitely, not one of his best days. "Then you come to me and say you wanna try changing the fucking past!?"
Ok, maybe then his voice cracked.
"What's so different Hanako-kun?" asked her, petulant. "If the future in Tsuchigomori-sensei's books is suposed to be unchangeable, then what's the difference between changing the future and changing the past? If they are both unchangeable?"
That gave him pause. He had read her letter but there were so many missing pieces. He hadn't felt that much out of the loop ever since — hell, ever since he was alive!
"Okay, first difference, you aren't supposed to be able to go back to the past. Where did that idea come from? How come you got there?"
Yashiro took a bit too long to speak, enough that he started getting anxious again.
"Say, Hanako-kun, if I explain where I'm coming from, will you help me?"
It was a dangerous proposition even if he felt he wouldn't be able to say no to her in the end.
"It depends... what help do you need? I'm limited to my hakujoudai there, and to the school. As you already pointed out most of the action will happen way out of my sphere of influence."
"I know that. And you were right. I don't know enough to do what I want to, so I want you to tell me what I need to know. One answer for another, is that okay?"
That was a problem. He had once promised to tell her about himself, and he wasn't exactly intending to break that promise when he made it but, it was just... his own self wasn't a topic he dwelled into much, not even to himself. It was a bundle of sensitive topics that he hadn't touched ever since they stopped being relevant, ever since his heart had stopped beating...
"Hanako... kun?" She seemed unsure. He had taken too long to answer.
"Okay." His voice was so faint he was not sure she heard it. It had dawned on him how, if she didn't give up on that crazy idea of hers, she wouldn't need him to spill his secrets, she would watch them unveiled from a front row seat.
Ghosts don't have bodly functions; why did he feel like throwing up?
"Hanako!"
He jumped at the call of his name and turned to the offender like a spooked animal. Great, he had forgotten where he was. He had forgotten about the Kid.
"Not now, Kid" said he praying that the young exorcist would not meddle, if just that once.
"You're talking to Senpai. What happened? What is this thing about changing the past? Is Senpai okay? Are you okay?"
"No, no, I'm not dealing with you too."
"Hanako-kun?"
"Oi, Hanako, answer me!"
"I wasn't talking to you, Yashiro."
He saw Yashiro's confused expression through his hakujoudai. The Kid kept screaming his lungs out at his side. Could a ghost get a headache?
"The Kid's here."
"Kou-kun? Oh, hi?"
"Hanako!"
"ENOUGH!!!"
He let himself slide down the wall under the window. He felt an exhaustion a ghost was not supposed to be capable of feeling. His friends would be the death of him — well, second death.
"Yashiro, he can't hear you." He turned to the other. "Kid, neither can she. One thing at a time, but yes, she's fine right now and no, I won't play telephone, I'm not here to pass messages between the two of you."
He noticed the Kid wanted to speak and raised his palm, making a sign for him to shut up.
"First, Yashiro, I think you owe me an answer."
"I still don't owe you anything, Hanako-kun. You didn't answer any of mine."
"Technically I did answer about the rules of this exchange" said him trying to keep some level of detachment even if he could see her annoyance at it. If he didn't do that then he would end up crumbling, and 'Hanako' doesn't crumble. "But that's not what I meant. I asked the first question. Answer that, and you can ask yours."
"Well, its a long story..." said her pulling a towel and extending it on the ground by the gates before sitting down and resting her back against them.
If he closed his eyes he could pretend they were sitting back-to-back.
"We have time, out with it."
"Do you remember when I got tricked by Tsukasa-kun and ended up in the place between boundaries?"
He almost nodded before catching himself and humming in affirmation.
"You told me the doors led to everywhere and said I should search for the door to my own world."
Of couse he remembered that, it had been a pain searching for her back then, even with their bond, and he had done the exact same thing earlier that day, desperately.
"I did find it in the end. I heard the school's afternoon announcement from behind a door from a classroom in the old building. I didn't notice when I entered it but there was someone else there, and it wasn't, well, home home. I saw a boy there... It was you, Yugi Amane you I mean. You were hurt. You were crying."
He wasn't expecting that. He hadn't made peace with the fact Yashiro was definitely going to see his past. How could he wrap his head around the fact that she apparently already did?
It was good he had sat down before; he felt the pull of gravity in that moment like he hadn't in half a century.
"You okay, Hanako?"
"Hanako-kun?"
"T-that's the thing you wrote... about the keychain?" He had to force the words out. It sounded pathetic even to his ears.
"That... yes. Do you remember?"
"Yashiro... that was, just, I don't know, days before I... A lot happened around that time. I do remember losing that. I remember there was a girl, but... Even now, knowing it was you, I wouldn't be able to place that memory."
He hadn't noticed when the Kid had put a hand on his shoulder. His immediate reflex would be to shake him off but he was feeling too exhausted for that. Also, he could admit, at least to himself, that the hand felt grounding after the day he was having.
"I understand." She seemed a bit disappointed. "That was the moment I decided I wanted to protect you too."
"What?" he hadn't been expecting her to continue.
"You always help me. You're always there to save me. I had already noticed you did a lot for me, but it was around that time that I noticed that you too had your troubles even if you acted like nothing could affect you. So I wanted to make you happy."
"You didn't need to do anything to do that. Just having you here was enough."
"But what you told me on the far shore is also true. Even if I live, I wouldn't be able to be there with you forever and, even if you say that you couldn't stay with me, it's more like the opposite, isn't it? You don't have an end term for your duty as the Seventh school wonder. I don't like to imagine you alone in your bathroom years after I die even."
"That was the price for my actions. It was the path I chose."
"We are more similar than I thought."
"What do you mean?"
"Even when I said I was okay with dying you were still against it, weren't you?"
He almost yelled at her, then he got it and could not refrain from groaning. "And that's why you'll stay there no matter what I say..."
She didn't answer with words but turned back to his hakujoudai smiling brightly. Answer enough.
"Then it's your turn, Yashiro. What do you wanna know?"
"Uhm? I thought it was you again."
"Wha—Why?"
"Well, I asked if you remembered about when I met the you from before, and about how you felt about my death."
"Technicalities, Yashiro, technicalities. And even with them, if I counted each time we asked a question as part of this answer I still think it would be your turn, so out with it."
"Tsukasa-kun..." He didn't suppress the shudder that time. "Why did you say to not let Tsukasa-kun see me around you?"
Well, wasn't that a can of worms?
He took a deep breath before he started talking. Not that he could breathe. Not that he needed it. But going through the motions was still calming somewhat. He tried to put as much distance from the account as possible while still not lying about his relationship with his brother.
"Tsukasa was — well, still is — very attached to me. Back at the time you are right now he could be a little... possessive" said him in a low voice, clenching his fists to stop himself from grabbing at his wrists. Too close, he needed to go back to a safer ground. "We... used to be very close. We did a lot of things together, because we were twins, but things changed... back when we were still kids..."
"Hanako."
That time the Kid called his attention, it seemed to be something important so he let him speak.
"I'm guessing, what you're talking about is something we learned at your house."
He raised a brow, prompting him to explain, but that's also when Yashiro started to worry about his silence.
"Hanako-kun, are you okay?"
How many times were they gonna ask that?
"The Kid's talking, Yashiro. I come back to you in a moment?"
She just nodded and he turned back to the Kid. Fortunately, he at least seemed to be picking up on this strange two-way telephone exchange.
"We met your brother as a four-year-old back in your house, Hanako, and well, Senpai asked about him, and kid Tsukasa told us about the wish granting god under the house."
He winced at that. He remembered the way Tsukasa talked about that thing. How stupid can kids be? Nowadays he would rather call that thing a devil.
"He also said you had been sick back at that time."
Great, just how much of his life did they already know about? He held his head on his palm just signaling to the Kid to continue.
"He had told us before then that he couldn't leave the house, and when he was talking about you being sick as a child he explained that he couldn't leave because he made a deal to save your life—"
Don't you wanna play, Amane?
His stomach lurched. The look of that thing behind Tsukasa's eyes as he bragged about Amane's life being his to play with vivid in his memories as if it were happening at that moment. The knife that had been a part of his literal soul for half a century burning like hot iron in his insides like it did back then.
~~~~~~~~~~
He wasn't expecting what happened next. When Hanako lunged forward like he somehow could get sick he almost jumped himself.
"Oi, Hanako!?"
Hanako didn't respond, clutching at his chest like he couldn't breathe, eyes staring unseeing at the tiled ground of the bathroom. If he were alive he would be hyperventilating.
He remembered a time when he had unwittingly provoked his friend into a haze. Another time when no words seemed to reach him. How emotionless Hanako's eyes had looked as he asked if a very good reason was enough to justify killing someone.
That's when he noticed it wasn't as much the facts about him but his feelings about those that made up his friend's mysterious aura.
If his reaction at that moment was anything to go by, Hanako's feelings about his past were way more turbulent than any of them gave them credit for.
Seeing the trembling form of his friend he just had to do something, trying to reach out a hand like he had done before when he seemed to be losing himself in whatever topic he had been discussing with Senpai.
"Hanako?"
His fingers had barely grazed him when Hanako jerked away, swatting at his hand and raising his arms protectively in front of his face. Despite not needing to breathe his chest still rose and fell in quick, stuttered intervals.
"Hanako, it's me, Kou! I'm not gonna hurt you!"
He tried again, grabbing his wrists and moving them away from his face. Hanako closed his eyes and let out a faint whimper.
He froze.
He was less and less sure of what to do. Part of him had even considered zapping Hanako with his Raiteijou since, last time, his brother's attack did make him stop acting strange. However, after seeing him react with that amount of fear, he couldn't for the life of him bring himself to hurt his friend.
"Hanako, open your eyes."
Nothing
"Look at me, dammit!"
That did get him a reaction, although it was a scared stare without a hint of recognition.
"Hanako, you're safe. We're at the bathroom. I'm Kou, remember? You were talking to Yashiro-senpai."
Senpai's name again got a reaction — go figure. Hanako tried closing his eyes but opened them right back, tension palpable on his shoulders, fixing his stare on his green hakujoudai that was floating unsteadly between the two of them.
"I know you yourself don't breathe but try to focus on my breathing then. I don't know what happened, but you are safe here, calm down."
It must have taken a good fifteen minutes before Hanako's shoulders relaxed and he closed his eyes again, hands falling back limply to his lap once released from his grip.
He spoke in a faint subdued tone.
"Yes, I know, sorry for scaring you guys. I'm okay. Yes, Yashiro, the Kid's still here."
"Is Senpai okay?"
"I gave her one hell of a fright, but she's okay, Kid." His voice was painfully even compared to how it was moments before.
"Are you okay now?"
Hanako only nodded.
"Thanks, Kid."
He did a double take at that. Hanako had been evading eye contact ever since calming down but seemed to understand what he was wondering about.
"People like to say time heals, but a person's time stops at death. Let's say most memories from before I died, specially those related to my brother, are... complicated" said Hanako in guise of explanation, before adding "please, stop saying you're sorry, Yashiro. I knew what I was getting myself into when I agreed to your suggestion. I just... I was hoping to set the pace for this specific topic. I didn't expect you two to know this much already. I'll get back to you, Yashiro."
Hanako finally looked back at him and he could see his eyes were red from his outburst.
"Did he say anything else or... was that all?"
"Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"The things she's gonna find on my past are what caused this. If she's not giving up on this plan... I don't want her to meet those unprepared so I need to know what she knows" said Hanako matter-of-factly but he could see that his hands were still shaking.
Thus he reached out again, resting his hands over Hanako's.
"If it gets too bad, if it's too much, let me know."
Hanako looked back at him spooked before giving a short nod.
"After that, well..."
"What is it, Kid?"
"Well, Senpai said I was a bit harsh..." explained him embarrassed. "It's just, kid Tsukasa said it was okay if he stayed in the house forever, because he said you hated him..."
"I never hated him..." said Hanako meekly in a tone full of regret, giving his hand a light squeeze to signal him to give him a moment. Apparently Senpai didn't get the memo, since Hanako released a sigh and continued talking. "Of course I love him, Yashiro, he's my little brother" and, after a pause, "yes. Yes, he is."
He stood there, understanding very little of the exchange but opting to not ask about it since, despite his more controlled behavior, his ghost friend still seemed too fragile for confort. He didn't notice when Hanako looked back at him.
"What else, Kid? I still don't see what Yashiro could have considered harsh on your part."
"Well, after he said that I may have snapped at him."
Hanako just raised a brow. Of couse, that didn't really explain anything.
"I lost my mother." He was glad Hanako seemed to understand that he must have a reason for that change of topic. "I know what it's like when your family is alright and then, all of a sudden, it isn't anymore. I got mad when your brother said you'd be okay without him. I... I may have told him about your future..."
A squeeze.
"You... what?" Hanako's eyes were open wide in shock. He kept squeezing his hand harder to the point it was starting to hurt, buy he held his ground and waited as Hanako took a few very convincing deep breaths before he continued. "You told Tsukasa I was going to kill him..."
Each word had ben uttered carefully, slowly. Hanako wasn't asking for confirmation, he was asserting a conclusion he had already reached from his earlier words.
He wanted to raise his moral when he decided to continue despite Hanako not giving him a signal to.
"We were wondering if the Tsukasa that we know, the one that you killed, was even your brother at all. If the four-year-old him had been in the house, the one you killed was an impos—"
But he couldn't even finish. Hanako released a faint amused laught as he was speaking, and soon it started filling him with dread as it rose and rose in volume and intensity reaching hysterics, and Hanako buried his hands in his hair dislodging his cap, there were tears at the corners of his eyes.
He was asking if he was okay, Senpai must have been doing the same.
"You..." wheezed him between his laughter. "You guys... you're too naive... an impostor... but of course he was... ever since he came back... he's been both... Tsukasa... and the house devil... we just... put up with it... for so, so long..."
Hanako's laughter was dying down but it was fading into emptyness, like he had burned through the last of his energy.
"That is until... there was nothing else I could do." The tears rolled down his cheeks, silently.
"Hanako—"
"There's always only been one Tsukasa... but my little brother isn't the only one... inside that body... or soul..."
"Hanako?"
The silence stretched uncomfortably between the two before Hanako spoke again.
"You can both stop looking at me like you're worried I'm gonna keel over or something." Hanako's expression was clearly meant to be a glare, but it was painfully emotionless. The wet trail of tears on his cheeks giving him a haunted appearance he normally didn't have despite being an actual ghost. "I'm dead already, and if this was enough to do me in now I wouldn't have lasted a year, much less fifty."
He wondered if Hanako had finally reached his emotional threshold. It was evident the smiling face he usually showed was a mask. No one could have killed their sibling and died so young and be completely okay. But, before that exact moment, he had rarely given a thought to the weight Hanako carried on his shoulders. If the last hours were anything to go by, his usual attitude was more the result of never touching on anything even mildly uncomfortable than true emotional control or maturity. He was still grieving what happened then like it had been yesterday. The explosion they just witnessed evidenced the ghost had spent half a century holding a lid to a pressure pot. After they cracked that thing open he just seemed completely spent, and empty. Acknowledging those things, instead of bringing relief seemed to be crushing him under their weight.
That's when he made a decision, picking up his cellphone under the blank stare of his ghost friend.
"I'm calling Nii-chan, tell Senpai I'll be spending the night here with you."