Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was hot. The sort of heat where even the barest of movements felt like dragging your body through water. Hot water.

"There's nothing to do but stay home," his mother said. She was still cooling the house by means of a few strategically-placed fans. "It's too hot to go anywhere."

She just wants us around the house, Satoru thought.

Airi pushed her hair off her neck. "I hate to come all this way and not do anything. Isn't there a children's museum? Where did you guys go when you were kids?"

In Satoru's mind, his childhood had been one long winter, but he didn't say anything.

The kid wanted to go to the splash park. Satoru waited for his mother to agree to go along—she never seemed to let the kid out of her sight when they were visiting, and in Tokyo, she would be leaving Airi in her dust to do whatever sightseeing she wanted to with the kid in tow.

"You really don't like the heat," he said as they watched Airi leading their sun-hatted daughter down the street. The splash park was a new invention, one of those things that pop up inexplicably, overnight, between one's childhood and one's childbearing years. What did they do with it in the winter? Around here, it would only get two or three months of use.

"I can't go out there at my age." She leaned back in her chair, fanning herself. "You'll understand when you're older."

Satoru turned to look in the darkened bedroom. He couldn't do it without thinking about all those lost years, the years his mother had spent taking care of him, doing everything for him. That thing he had called Revival.

He never thought about it in Tokyo, when he was with Airi and the kid, when he was working. They were ten years past 2006, the last year he'd made it to in the pre-Revival world. His life was so different that he never had occasion to think about it. He didn't even think about it with his friends in Hokkaido, because in the old world, he'd never seen them as adults.

His health was good, his family was good, his career was good. But here, in this little house, with the creeping heat, and his mother, he remembered what had all started this.

You didn't mind the heat when you took my accident as an excuse to visit me.

She dropped her hand, which had been blotting sweat from her forehead. "Satoru! What are you talking about? I never did such a thing."

Crap. I said that out loud. Satoru shut the bedroom door. "Never mind."

"Don't 'never mind' me!" She pushed herself to her feet. "What are you talking about?" In her eyes was a look of uncertain horror, as though she could not believe what she was hearing.

Satoru lunged toward her, barely able to get the words out fast enough. "No, Mom. Not that accident. That's not what I meant!" She knew he was grateful for those fifteen years, didn't she? She had to.

"Then what did you mean, Satoru?" She did not look angry. That was the worst part. She just looked disappointed.

He fished for something, knowing that the more he let it go, the deeper he was digging himself. "Mom, you can't think I meant… what you think I mean."

She didn't say a word. It was like when he'd been young and she had waited while he fumbled out an explanation, digging himself deeper and deeper until he had finally given up and admitted his lie.

"I'm sorry," he said. It was a poor answer. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you."

"You won't know if you don't try." She sat down again at the table, smile tight. For all that his life had been a tangled mess, she had always been his constant, and he knew exactly what every one of her looks meant.

"You're going to call a bunch of doctors. You're going to make it an incident."

"Why would I do that? You're sounding very strange, Satoru." She paused. "But I suppose you did always say strange things." She traced her finger over the condensation dripping from her glass of barley tea. "No, it wasn't always. It started not long before…"

"I fell asleep."

Her lack of answer was confirmation enough. "You know, I tried it," she said softly. "I went to Ueno without changing trains. I wondered how you knew that. Some boys are interested in things like that. They study train schedules and route maps, even if they never get to go to the city. But you were never interested in that. I wondered how you knew."

Something cold dropped into his stomach despite the heat. Telling her had never been an option. Satoru had so far managed to do it all—to save Kayo, to bring Yashiro to justice, even to find Airi again—without telling anyone. Did he really need to go down this route?

He had always been secure in his confidence that his secret would never be discovered because there was no way anyone could guess it. How could he explain something that no one could ever believe?

His mouth was dry, but somehow, he was able to form the words. "I knew because I used to live there. In Tokyo."

This was a long pause, so long, in fact, that he was afraid she might laugh. Distantly, there was the sound of a motor. A car drove past, making him realize he couldn't remember when he had last heard one. This neighborhood is still so quiet.

"You live there now." Her voice was even as she pointed out the obvious.

He took a deep breath and sat down across from her at the table. "I lived there, then, too." He waited for her to ask again what he was talking about, but she didn't. She stared at him, her eyes seeming to see right through him, as though she already knew. I suppose I'm telling her. There's no going back from here.

"Do you remember—" Of course she does. "—when I was in fifth grade?"

"Yes," she said cautiously. "That was when you changed."

He had not been prepared to put Revival into words. He had never thought he would have to. He didn't even understand it himself; how could explain it to someone else? "I… had an ability. No, it wasn't an ability. It happened to me. At random." He forced out something that was half a laugh. "I called it Revival."

"Revival?" she asked sharply. "Like when they show something again on TV?"

"That's what it reminded me of. Something would happen—something bad—and then I would find myself jumped back to before it happened. So I could fix it."

He watched the emotions flicker over her face—denial was first, but then realization settled in slowly. "No," she murmured. "Satoru, this isn't funny. Is this a new manga idea?"

"Mom, would I… would I joke about this?" His tongue felt too thick. He poured himself a glass of tea, trying to exert some control over something.

She sighed. "No. No, you wouldn't. Satoru, when—how?"

"I don't know how. In… the first time I lived this life, Kayo, Hiro, and Aya… They were all murdered when we were in fifth grade."

His mother covered her mouth with her hand. "No. How?"

As the words came to him to describe that awful spring, it got easier to tell her. She was not surprised to hear it had been Yashiro; she was not even surprised to hear that they had tried to keep the children from hearing too much about the case.

"But how does this connect with Tokyo?" she asked him suddenly.

That was when the image came unbidden of his mother murdered on his apartment floor. He couldn't tell her that.

"Satoru," she said sharply.

"What?"

"I can see you don't want to tell me. But you already started to, so you might as well finish." He could see she was resigned to hear the rest, too. "Satoru, did I die?"

She asked it so matter-of-factly that it caught him off guard. Who asks if they died like that?

"I did."

Why do I even bother telling her if she can just tell from my face?

"Was that the accident?" she asked.

"No," he managed, the first time he could get a word in. "I had another Revival incident. A small one. I stopped a traffic accident, but I ended up in the hospital myself. You came to visit me."

She smiled slyly. "To sightsee?"

"Yeah. And one day… You saw something that made you think of the kidnapping case. Yashiro must have found out you suspected him."

For once, she didn't interrupt. She understood where he was going, though.

"And that was when I went back. To 1988." He did not bother about his flight from the police. It seemed like an irrelevant detail.

"And that was when you decided to make friends with Kayo." She smiled. It wasn't exactly the sort of reaction you expected from someone who was just finding out that they had narrowly missed being murdered. "I was very proud of you, Satoru. You just seemed to grow up overnight." She paused. "I guess you did. How old were you then?"

"I was twenty-nine. It was 2006."

"2006!" She shook her head. "I don't know how you lived as a ten-year-old without anyone noticing."

"Neither do I." As absurd as this all sounded, it was a miracle no one had figured him out before. Not Yashiro. Not Kenya. Not his mother.

She pushed her chair back and stood. "Well, I'm still very proud of you. I hope you know that."
Satoru felt a smile spread over his face. "I do, Mom."

He watched as she carried their glasses to the sink and began washing them.

"Don't you have any other questions?" he asked hesitantly. He could not think of what more to say, but he also could not imagine that someone could so easily except the idea of Revival.

She paused. "No. You told me you knew what Yashiro had planned, and now I understand how you knew it. But, no, I don't have any more questions."

He slumped back in his chair, almost in relief.

"I think," she went on, "it's not worth questioning how we got to where we are now. We're here. That's what matters."

Satoru stood. He wasn't sure where he was going until he was standing in front of her, by the sink. And then he was hugging her. "Thanks, Mom," he murmured into her shoulder.

"Satoru! What—"

"All those years, you—"

"We've been through this! Of course I did that. You're my son."

He blinked furiously against the tears that threatened his vision. "But—" He wasn't sure what he was about to say, but the front door slid open and he stepped back, adjusting his glasses.

"We're back," Airi said. "The park was closed."

"Was it?" His mother pushed past him, headed straight for the kid. "Well, we'll just have to find something else to do. Do you want to see some pictures of your dad when he was your age?"

"Oh, Mom, come on!"

"I want to see!" Airi exclaimed.

Satoru sighed, but he allowed himself a small smile when their backs were turned. His mother was right. What had happened before didn't matter. This mattered.