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He gained back his pain.
As unbelievable as it sounds, all it took was for Sonozaki Noriko to realize that she doesn’t have to rely on the Kizna system and hold on to everyone’s pain in order for happiness to come. Bonds can still be made between people even without sharing their wounds.
In retrospect, Katsuhira supposes what he did at the time was in fact rather reckless. As he fought against forces of gravity to climb up the broken bridge in order to reach Sonozaki, he felt his heart pounding violently inside his ribcage. As if his senses have been magnified by a hundred times, he could recall every piece of detail vividly. The way the breeze blew through his hair, the coldness of the night air, the sweatiness of his palms, and of course, what he later came to know as pain residing in his chest.
He held her tight as they both fell from the top of the bridge. The moment he hits the surface of the water, his brain goes haywire with his pain returning to his body all at once. It was the closest experience he has ever been to death, but he has never felt more alive.
It turns out his injuries are far worse than hers, which is something he is glad about. After years of holding on to 19 people’s pain on top of her medication treatment to nullify her senses, he has the impression that it is possible for her to fall apart any minute before his eyes.
But she is stronger than she seems. With an amazing speedy recovery, she visits his room every day wearing her signature deadpan expression. Even though it is difficult to discern, Katsuhira can tell something has changed within her.
She is livier, less formal, and above all, more human. Sonozaki has picked up another battle of her own. This one is perhaps even more difficult than her last battle; she has to let go of her fears and learn to believe in the bonds that are made with the connection from her heart rather than through an artificial experiment conducted in a controlled environment.
She nearly never comes empty handed. Most of the time are flowers or drawings or short notes received from their childhood friends. “They are doing well.” Sonozaki tells him, with a hint of eagerness that isn’t masked by her seemingly emotionless tone. “Yamada and Urushibara said they are making a lot of progress.”
“Is that so.” Katsuhira says, all around them, the world is silent. “I am happy to hear that.”
“Next time, let’s visit them together.”
Rays of sunlight leaks through curtains and reflects in her eyes, reminding him of kind kind of gem he read in the books when he was younger. Sonozaki doesn’t say anything. Instead, she holds his hand tightly and nods.
It must be because it’s so quiet, he can almost hear his heartbeat.
More often than not, his hospital is actually quite rowdy.
Chidori, Tenga, Nico, Honoka, Yuta, Hisomu. His friends never fails to keep him company. His bedside is flooded with candies and snacks they bring along. Their laughter give him many, many reasons to smile.
At first, Sonozaki was reluctant to engage in their conversations. Although technically, she is the very reason that they were brought together, her interaction with everyone except for Katsuhira is very minimal. In addition, all along her role has been an observer, someone who oversees the whole operation. Undoubtedly, she had also personally caused each one of them some degree of distress due to the nature of the experiment. It is difficult for her to sudden become part of the group given everything that has happened.
……Or so she thought.
Nico for one, didn’t wait to change the fact. “Sonozaki-san! Please exchange phone number and email with Nico!” The girl with the long pigtails beams at her as brightly as the sun, extending her arm to Sonozaki to offer her phone.
“My number and……email?” Sonozaki seems quite baffled by the request. “For what purpose?”
“Katsuhira-kun is the only one who has your contact information right? That is so not fair!” The energy radiating from Nico is something Sonozaki has never experienced before. One second she is smiling happily and the next she is already pouting and waving her arms around angrily. She has not seen anyone who can change expressions as fast as she can. “Nico wants to know more about Sonozaki-san too! Let’s be friends!”
“Friends……” The word strikes her heart and she can feel the vibrations all the way up her spine. Out of the unfamiliarity of dealing with this kind of situation, she instinctively turn to Katsuhira for help. He smiles at her and nods.
“I suppose……if you would like to.” Carefully taking Nico’s phone, Sonozaki types in her number and email swiftly before returning it to its owner . Eyeing the grinning blonde with uncertainty swimming in her sky blue eyes, she finally asks.
“Can we really become friends?”
Nico’s answer is one that isn’t to be challenged.
“Of course! Just like how everyone of us become friends with each other, Sonozaki-san will too!”
Like any couples, there are many times when the two of them argue. But at the end of the day, those fights never last long.
“What I said was too harsh. I apologize.” Sonozaki sits by his bedside, long blue hair flows down her back. She is facing the window and staring straight ahead , perhaps reminiscing all the times when she had gone too far and lost sight of what is truly important.
“You are doing the best you can, Nori-chan.” He is not the ideal candidate to be giving people advice on how to understand people’s feelings. He only began to acquire that skill not too long ago. He knows he is still no good at it, but he wants to be here. He wants to let her know that this is something they will work on together.
After a brief moment of stillness, they exchange a gaze and he sees her expression softening. He can see the shadow of her past self in her eyes. He knows that she is still the same person after all those years.
At the end of the day, Katsuhira admires her more than anyone. Beneath the layer of stubbornness and what came close to insanity, she had never thought of resigning to her fate and abandoning their friends.
What Sonozaki never told him is that in the same way, she had always admired him as well. For him to lose his sense of pain and his emotions becoming diluted, he still never forced himself to keep going forward. For the sake of his friends, Katsuhira pushed himself further than he ever could.
He notices her absence when she didn’t come to visit him three days in a row. When she finally shows up and he asks her about it, he is rather surprised by her response.
“I was studying.” Sonozaki tells him with all seriousness.
“Studying? For exams?” He scratches his cheek. Exam seasons aren’t upon them yet.
Sonozaki shakes her head slightly, and doesn’t elaborate. It is two days later when he hears some chattering outside his room and out of curiosity, he takes a peek at his window.
He sees Sonozaki handing something to Chidori, and the red haired girl seems equally surprised as he is watching this scene unfold. He isn’t able to tell what Sonozaki had said, but the smile spreading across Chidori’s face is nothing short of genuine.
The two girls exchanges a few more words before Chidori leaves the hospital, her steps light and cheerful. Sonozaki turns around quickly and pulls the door open, exposing him to her watchful eyes.
“How long are you planning to spy on us?” She seems even mildly irritated, an emotion rarely found in her.
“What were you two talking about-”
“It is none of your concern.” She sits down with her back to him, arms crossed. “It is between me and Chidori.”
“Chidori? Since when did you start calling her by her first name……”
“……Because that’s what Nico said.” Sonozaki whispers softly, as if it is a dream that she is afraid to break, hope bubbles in her chest.
“––She said that’s what you do with friends, people you want to be close with.”
When he finally leaves the hospital, she ended up moving into his home a few weeks later. His apartment is spacious, and now that Hisomu and Tenga no longer permanently lives here, he has more room than he needs.
Neither of them are terribly good at taking care of themselves, but two is still better than one. He thought it was funny how after all the chaos has taken place, he find himself struggling with going back to the routine. Now that he has to go back to the classroom, he desperately need to catch up on all the coursework that he missed.
It is reassuring to be back. Hisomu welcomes them with the same smile he wears every day. Nico squeals and throws herself at him, chanting how happy she is to see him finally out of the hospital. Chidori grins and tells him he can always come over if he ever runs out of food. Tenga teases him about his relationship with Sonozaki yet gets incredibly flustered when asked the same question regarding him and Chidori. Honoka smacks him lightly on the head with her notebook and gives him all the notes he can possibly need. Yuta tells him not to do anything that would cause him to end up in a hospital again.
He is the same person, yet he is finding more and more joy in his everyday life. There isn’t a minute that goes into waste, not with his friends and Sonozaki around him.
Sonozaki is here. Always here.
“Katsuhira-kun, what are you thinking about right now?”
Autumn comes and the ground is covered by fallen leaves. He holds her hand as they walk along the pavement, slowly making their way home.
“I was thinking about……how happy I am.”
She watches him quietly, leaning in closer and pecking him on the cheek.
“Me too, Katsuhira-kun.”
Katsuhira glances at her bashfully, fully aware of how red he has turn. “And I was thinking about how cute you are, Nori-chan.”
Sonozaki doesn’t reply, but her lips are curving upward and a small blush spreads across her face.
He has gained back his pain, and she gave him so much more than that, helping him find all the little pieces of him that he lost.
That is exactly why this time, it is his turn to help her find her smiles.