Chapter Text
To say that becoming an architect was a dream for Tachibana Taki would be a large exaggeration. At best, he felt indifferent towards the field and at worst, it was a boring menial job who's only purpose was to keep him fed. Taki hadn't really given his career much thought as a young teen, he just went with the flow and picked the one thing everyone else his age seemed to be doing. That didn't mean it was all bad though.
Studying to become an architect had its benefits. For starters, most positions had an extremely high salary, enough to live in Tokyo comfortably with funds to spare. Of course, it being such a desirable job for students and employers alike, there was no shortage of candidates all gunning for the same posts, so the chances of Taki claiming one for himself were rather slim in all actuality. But, he didn't let that bother him most of the time. That was a problem for Future Taki, the one who had finished university and was out in the real world. Present Taki's biggest concern was making sure he didn't pass out from boredom during his current, non-architecture classes he was mandated to attend if he wanted to graduate high school.
In subjects that were less interesting to him, Taki often found himself drifting off from the lecture. He just couldn't focus, he'd end up fidgeting with his hands or focusing on an edge of his desk that was slightly different from the others and by the time he'd zone back in, it'd already be the end of class. Fortunately, Taki discovered early on in his second year a perfect solution to this problem.
Another thing about architecture is that it requires a lot of drawing. Unlike most young people chasing a job in that field, Taki found that he quite liked drawing. Something about visualising a passing idea of his with just pencil and paper was very therapeutic to him.
Not to mention the fact that it would help him get the job he needed, so it was a win/win situation really.
It also proved to be extremely useful for his other classes too. Letting his hands run freely over the pages of his sketchbook gave them something to do and allowed him to put his full attention (or at least half, drawing did benefit from some visual observation after all) back on his teachers. His grades shot up to an acceptable degree, his father stopped lecturing him about daydreaming and he filled up his sketchbooks in no-time flat. Plus, the sketching looked close enough to note-taking that nobody ever called him out on it.
This week, he was having more trouble focusing in class than usual due to one, crater-sized problem.
For some reason he couldn't even begin to fathom, last weekend Taki had frantically gathered up a bagload of belongings and taken the first train out (with Tsukasa and Okudera-senpai dragging themselves along) to the countryside in search of a random town he had started drawing in his sketchbook about a month ago.
It took a full day of asking around the region, but eventually they encountered a former resident of the town, which they learned was called Itomori, who offered to drive them up to visit the place. Taki doesn't know what he was looking to find up there, but he's pretty sure it wasn't the remains of a freak meteorite impact that occured 3 years prior.
The rest of the trip is somewhat blurry to him now, but he recalls leaving a note telling the other two to go home without him and then appearing on top of a mountain the next morning with no recollection as to how he got there. Worst of all, after waking up he had been hit with the most profound feeling of loss he had ever experienced, on par with when his mother had passed several years ago, only this time he had no idea what had even caused it.
As much as Taki wanted to stay and try to figure out what had occured, it was Monday and he had a feeling his father wouldn't be too impressed learning he had missed school because of an impromptu trip outside of the city. So relunctantly, he returned to Tokyo and resigned to deciphering his visit at home.
Needless to say, the trip to Itomori had been weighing on Taki's mind ever since. As soon as he got back from work Monday evening, he had scoured the internet for as much infomation on the now-destroyed town that he could, returning mostly news reports and articles from around the time the comet split and struck the area. He hadn't taken much notice of the news at the time, so he was glad to learn that there had been no casualties outside of a few injured residents. 'A little too glad' he thought, considering that he hadn't even known about Itomori until a short while ago, let alone anyone who might have lived there. The low-casualty rate was mostly thanks to a frighteningly efficient evacuation ordered by the previous mayor.
Most of the articles were speculating on the convenience of the escape, with a bunch of theories ranging from a lucky hunch on the mayor's part, to the entire comet being a secret military weapon designed to wipe out the town, for whatever reason, with the secret being leaked to the mayor in time for him to get the residents out to safety. Taki didn't think that option was very likely, but he did consider the small possibility that he had stumbled on some military base during his trip and had his memory forcibly wiped because of it.
Either way, he was no closer to discovering what could have caused him to become so obssessed with the town over the previous month.
It was now late Friday afternoon, and Taki was itching to get out of sixth period and back to his research at home. He typically didn't work at the restaurant on Fridays, and he was excited to use that extra free time to the fullest. His thoughts on the trip had made him less attentive throughout the rest of the week but today that, combined with the idea of learning the truth behind his lapse in memory, had turned him socially catatonic, with the intermittent scratching of his pencil against sketch paper being the only thing keeping him grounded.
Finally, finally, the bell rang to signal the end of school and Taki had to practically dig his legs into the hard floor into order to maintain a sense of digity amongst his peers. As they all filed out of the classroom talking about their plans for the evening, Taki started hurredly packing away his things and got ready to leave. As he reached for his sketchbook to place it inside his bag, he took notice of what his hands had been crafting for the past hour and froze.
On the page was a 3/4 profile of a person's head, from the shoulders up. There were no facial features yet, only the sketch lines there, but on top of that, a hairline had been drawn onto the bust. Straight black hair fell around the sketch's outline, stopping just short of its neck. It must've been where most of the classroom time had been spent, since it was infinitely more detailed than the rest of the drawing.
Drawing people wasn't unheard of for Taki, he's done person studies before. What was unheard of was the braided ribbon he had drawn wrapped around the bust's hair. In all the time Taki has spent drawing, he's never done accessories before. He doesn't even think he knows how, just looking at the ribbon has him wondering how his hands had depicted it in such detail, especially without his eyes guiding his movements like usual.
Also, as strange as it may seem, he found that studying this drawing sent a sharp pain through his heart. That didn't make any sense, it was just a featureless portrait.
Suddenly aware of how long he'd been standing there staring at his own sketchbook, Taki carefully tucks it in his bag and makes his way back to the apartment. The weirdly impressive drawing can wait until later, he's got a mystery to solve.
Taki was at his wits end. It had been two full weeks since his trip to Itomori and still nothing about the town jumped out at him or jogged his memory. He had moved on from articles about the comet and instead started focusing on anything he could find about the town before it struck. Unfortunately, it seemed like Itomori as a town was far less interesting to the outside world than what had happened to it, as there were extremely few sources online about the place that weren't internet reviews for the occasional establishment just outside of the area.
He was starting to lose sleep over his search, which was definitely not helping out with his focus problem at school. During class it became commonplace to find himself barely slipping off into dreamland, although he's fairly sure that even if he was capable of active thought, the only thing he would be able to consider was his progress on Itomori.
As long as he kept the sounds of his sketching irregular enough to prevent it becoming another source of white noise, he was able to power through his lectures until the period ended and get back to the infinitely more important task of recovering his memories.
This left his sketches at the mercy of the autonomous motions from his hands.
And his hands were really fixated on that bustup with the ribbon.
Slowly but surely over the course of the previous week, little additions were made to the drawing; a cute little button nose, a pair of innocent wide eyes and delicate lips that curved upwards into a soft smile converged together to create the visage of a girl, though Taki couldn't remember for the life of him where he had seen her face before.
With every new detail added to The Girl (it felt wrong to refer to her without proper emphasis), the despondent feeling that pricked at his heart grew stronger. He just couldn't shake the thought that he should know her.
He also couldn't shake the thought that she had something to do with Itomori.
It seemed too much of a coincidence to keep them fully separate in his mind. After all, he'd only started drawing her after his trip to the town. Perhaps she was related to his missing memory? Had he met her during that weekend? Taki figured that having more leads to follow couldn't hurt, so he resolved to divert his attention between the two subjects. At least, that was the initial plan.
With his research efforts on the country town returning less and less results each night and the portrait almost complete with no progression towards recovering his memories, Taki was starting to get desperate. He started throwing his all into both avenues, his sleep schedule was reduced to a damning 'nonexistent' and whatever brainpower was remaining after that was spent in class trying to remember any minute detail he could about The Girl, which Taki knew was probably not doing him any good but frankly he was beyond the point of caring.
He just knows that if he can figure out what happened in Itomori, it will explain him waking up in tears from a dream he can't picture, it will explain why he feels such a connection to a town he'd never visited, it will explain why looking at the portrait of The Girl makes him feel such a deep sense of longing. Longing, for a heartbeat beside his own.
"Tachibana!"
Taki slams his sketchbook shut like a man possessed and quickly refocuses his wandering attention to whoever shouted his name.
Mr. Kanae, his literature professor, is staring daggers in his direction, likely waiting for him to realise the shit he's gotten himself in.
"Save the doodling for outside of class." The word 'doodling' dripping from his mouth like it was made of acid. By now, Taki had also noticed his classmates glancing in his direction, mostly trying to hold in their laughter with a few sympathetic looks mixed in. Taki felt his ears burn in embarrassment as he sheepishly apologised to his professor.
"Sorry Kanae-sensei, it won't happen again."
With a huff, Mr. Kanae turned back to the whiteboard and continued on with his lecture. Though Taki hunched over and made a concerted effort fo focus on the board for once, he could still feel the lingering stares of his classmates digging into his skull, the most piercing one belonging to Tsukasa across the room. He groaned internally, there was no way he was getting out of this one.
"So, what was that?"
"What was what?"
"Cut the crap, Taki. You know what I mean."
Despite his best efforts to scuttle out unnoticed at the end of period, he was quickly caught by Tsukasa with a firm arm around the shoulder and led down the hallway to their usual spot on the roof. Taki was just glad it was empty for once, he had a feeling this particular meeting wasn't going to be as pleasant as usual. After practically shoving him down to a seated position, Tsukasa had sat cross legged just opposite, eyes cloudy with a mixture of concern and stoicism.
Taki had been hoping to postpone this interrogation until he had some idea of how to explain his recent behaviour to Tsukasa without seeming like he belonged in a therapist's office. Alas, his luck seems to have run out, and now he was paying the worst price imaginable; having his friend fuss over him.
Tsukasa pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses askew as he let out a lengthy sigh.
"You've been acting weird for a little while now man, and it's only gotten worse since we went up to that town." He brought his face back up to look at Taki once again. This time the cloud in his eyes had cleared, showing only worry for his friend. "I know you told us you were doing fine, but can you blame me for being a little suspect when it's been two whole weeks and you're still spacing out hard in class?"
"I am doing fine Tsukasa, I've just been a little busy with something."
"No shit, you've rejected every single hangout invitation me and Shinta have thrown your way, you barely speak to us during lunch, and I haven't even seen you out of your school uniform since that weekend!"
This was bad, Tsukasa never raised his voice unless he had been stewing in his anger for a while. Taki felt a faint sense of dread having it directed at him.
"I-"
"I've been talking with Okudera, you know. She says it's the same at work too. You converse with the customers and take orders from the chefs just fine, but you never talk with the other servers anymore. She thinks she did something to piss you off during the trip, and she's freaking out about it."
That was news to Taki. He hadn't thought much of Okudera-senpai's more reserved attitude towards him. Some time ago, the idea that she might have felt disheartened not being able to talk to him would have made his skip a beat, but now all he could feel was a deep shame in having caused his senior distress.
"Look, Taki." Tsukasa had calmed down considerably by this point, not that it helped unravel the knot of dread that had gripped Taki's heart. "I just- I just want to know how I can help."
The sheer desperation that coated that last word sobered Taki up as to how his researching had come across to his friends these past days. He knew that it wasn't nearly enough to simply apologise, but he had to make Tsukasa understand.
"I'm sorry."
Behind his glasses, the boy looked shocked at Taki's plain admission of guilt.
"I know that it's been scary to watch me sink deeper and deeper into this but.. I need you to trust me, man. I have a reason, I promise."
Though the guard in his posture had relaxed somewhat, Tsukasa still maintained his stern pose, arms crossed over each other as he motioned a 'go on' with his head.
"That trip.. it did something to me. I passed out on that mountain overlooking the lake and when I woke up I didn't remember a thing, I don't even know how I got up there. I know I went up there for a reason, there has to be a reason, but it's gone, Tsukasa. There's something between me and that town, I've been reading up on it every night to try and figure out what, but I'm no closer than when I started. The only clue I have now is this feeling that something is wrong, and I don't know how to make it right again."
After his impassioned rant, Taki crumpled in his seat, head in hands and breathing heavily to recuperate the lost oxygen. Tsukasa sat there stunned, not quite sure what to make of his friend's plight.
After a moment, he gathered what remaining saliva he had in his throat and spoke.
"Taki.. why didn't you tell me?"
Even having recovered from his earlier speech, Taki found it difficult to respond.
"I thought.. I thought you'd find me crazy. I mean, I drag you up and around half the country, tell you to go home and then return the next day without remembering a thing that happened?"
Tsukasa looked uncomfortable as he formed a reply. "I admit that it's not exactly.. a regular situation, but I would've at least heard you out. Thank you for telling me eventually, in any case."
With that, the tight knot that had formed around Taki's throat seemed to loosen and it felt like he could properly breathe for the first time in minutes.
"Now, let's try and figure this out together."
"Huh?"
"I told you, didn't I? I'm going to help you out with this, whether you like it or not. What's the last thing of the trip you remember?"
Taki closed the door to his apartment and slumped against it, too fatigued to even remove his bag from his shoulder. The brainstorming session that had ensued between him and Tsukasa had left him with minimal energy remaining. 'Definitely no more research for me tonight.'
In truth, Tsukasa's help had been invaluable and getting a second opinion on some details that were bugging him aided in crafting a clearer picture of what had happened that weekend in Itomori.
He just wished some of it wasn't so embarrassing to hear about.
Tsukasa proposed that perhaps he had somehow transformed into 'Weird Taki', the one who liked café food a little too much and couldn't do his job correctly, while he was heading out to Itomori for the second time, which is why he couldn't remember the trek up the mountain.
It was a decent theory, further backed by the point that Taki didn't really know what the trigger for Weird Taki was, just that sometimes he woke up as this alternate self and after he changed back he had no memory of what had occurred while he was dormant.
They tried to figure out what Weird Taki's motives for heading up the mountain could have been, with Tsukasa attempting to psychoanalyze his other self based on what he had done during the days he had taken over. They didn't get very far, and ended up on a side tangent about how his date with Okudera-senpai had gone so poorly. ("It's just, you've had a crush on her for months, how did you fumble that bad?" "I don't know, man.")
In the end, they had deduced that Weird Taki and Itomori must have some sort of link with one another, as he had only started sketching the town the same week that his second personality had appeared for the first time. What that link was, however, was still unknown to them even after a full hour of theory crafting.
So, with a weary goodbye and a stern warning from Tsukasa not to do overdo it anymore, Taki had gone home.
Even though he was much too tired to do any research on Itomori, he could still take a look at what his hands had updated about The Girl during class, and it would probably give him the peace of mind to get to bed early. Though gazing at the drawing mostly made a melancholic pang ring throughout his heart, there was a hint of warmth that filled his soul alongside it.
Settling down at the desk in his room, he deposited the sketchbook in front of him and flipped to the latest page.
Now that the portrait was in full colour, he could really appreciate the detail that his subsconscious had put into her. The warm hazel in her eyes that looked sweeter than chocolate, the soft blush spread across her cheeks highlighting the contours of her face, the ribbon wrapped in her hair twining in a calm mixture of red, blue and orange-
Taki suddenly felt like he'd been punched in the gut.
He..
He knew that ribbon.
That was his ribbon! The ribbon he wore around his wrist-
..where is it? Where's the ribbon? Taki always wore that ribbon except-
He hasn't seen it since the trip.
Taki practically flung himself out of his seat and began frantically searching his room. Drawers were pulled open, closets ransacked, his desk practically turned inside out checking all the nooks and crannies, but still no sign of the ribbon.
He desperately tried to remember the last time he had seen it, but he was coming up blank outside of flashes of his trip to Itomori.
Taking the bus around the countryside
Asking the locals on where to find the town
Being driven up to the school overlooking the crash site
Desperately searching the local library for something (What was that something again?)
Writing the note for Tsukasa and Okudera and heading back to Itomori on his own
Waking up on top of a mountain the next morning to find a faded line on his hand drawn in marker-
Pause.
No ribbon.
Sometime between those two moments, his ribbon had disappeared. Likely forever, at this point. Even if he had the time to go all the way back up that mountain and look for it, there was almost no chance it hadn't blown far away in the wind by now.
Taki slumped to his knees in defeat, and didn't move for a very long time. That ribbon, possibly being the only connection he had to The Girl and his memories, was gone.
He felt the telltale burning from tears welling up in his ducts. Why was the entire universe so set against him learning the truth? Why was every step forward met with pushback tenfold in strength?
Why was that ribbon so important to him, anyway? Taki recalled slotting it around his wrist every morning as part of his routine, but he was never one to accessorise. What was different about this ribbon? Where had he even gotten it?
'Taki-kun!'
Taki gasped, suddenly reliving a memory years past, a 17-year old soul in his 14-year old body. He found himself on a busy train facing a girl, though oddly he couldn't make out anything above her shoulders, her face cast in a thick blur as if his own mind was trying to censor her appearance.
'It's me! ..don't you..remember me?'
"..Who are you?"
Taki internally winced. The abruptness of this situation had made the words that left his mouth sound more accusatory than he intended.
The girl seemed heartbroken at his lack of recognition and before he knew it, she was being shuffled out of the train by the other passengers. Taki sensed that this was his one chance at getting an answer, so with all his might he chased after her and forced his lips to ask another question.
"Wait! What is your name?"
The words seemed to reveberate around the dreamlike stasis he found himself in and for a moment, he feared he was too late.
Not a second later, an end of a ribbon, the ribbon, appeared in front of him. He jumped to grasp the end, and as he was pulled out of his fragmented memory, he heard the girl's voice from outside the train.
'My name.. is M̴̠̈́͛̍̏̊̈́͘i̴͔͕̓̾ť̴̓͗̽̇̈͜ś̴̟̠̌̆̍̕̕͝u̶͉̼̗͇͂͐̏̓̒̋͘h̸̫̜̗̭͆̂̿̈́̒ą̸̤̣͕̺̬̄̃!'
And just like that, he was back to kneeling in his room, no ribbon in sight.