Chapter Text
That night, as she walked back home, Sakura couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d left something behind.
There was no reason for it; at least, none that she could think of, none that jumped out to her. The school day had been perfectly normal, of course, with nothing in particular to distract her. She’d made sure to check her backpack before she left, and she’d found that nothing was missing. When the feeling came, after she made a detour by the forest around the park in Tomoeda, she had to check again, and there still was nothing missing.
Was it something with Tomoyo or the others? No, she was sure there was supposed to be nothing special today. Not even Yamazaki’s tall tale about the origin of school textbooks could make her this forgetful. Sure, she had fallen for it—again—but Chiharu had been there to set the record straight like always. It was a wonder it kept happening like that. With how often it happened, it was quite the surprise that she was still falling for it. Well, so did Li, if that was any consolation. There wasn’t even a moment where Ms Mizuki was there—she had the ability to distract Sakura for short moments, just by her presence, so maybe she could have dropped something in the meantime, but no. She hadn’t even seen Yukito—that could have been what troubled her, but she was sure that it wasn’t that.
She kept walking, but still, the feeling kept nagging her. Maybe it was in the forest, maybe there was something she saw there. In fact, now that she thought about it, she didn’t remember why she even went there in the first place—an impulse, maybe it was. But it was getting late, and she didn’t want to bother anyone…
Still, it felt too strong. She had to go back. But if she just returned there without warning anyone, then her father would be worried. And that was the last thing she wanted. Touya—that would depend on whether he called her a monster tonight.
She was already home when the thought came to her. She would warn them of what she wanted, and then, she could decide if she was going to go back.
“I’m home!”
No one responded. That was odd—was her father late? She seemed to remember that he had a big lecture coming at Towa University, so it could have been that he was working late today. She left her shoes close to the doorstep and skipped up to the bedrooms—hopefully Touya would be there.
She reached for his room first thing and called his name when she was behind the door. The fact she didn’t knock—she’d forgotten because her mind was on what she could possibly have left behind—was probably the reason why, when he heard her, he was startled. It was then that he opened the door and gave her a look.
“Sakura?”
Good, she thought. At least he’s not calling me ‘monster’ there.
“I… have a problem,” she explained. “I’m pretty sure I’ve lost something on my way home.”
“Really?” he said. He sounded a bit exasperated, even though it wasn’t something she usually did. The fact that he was looking at her with a frown was a bad sign.
“Yes,” she said. No point in challenging him any further. “It’s just to say that I was going to look for it, just so you’d know. I’d hope you’d tell dad as well. But if you’ve got nothing else to do, then… maybe you could help?”
He breathed out and looked deep in thought. There was a chance he would refuse, but at least he’d know, and maybe he’d tell their father when he came back. But she would feel safer with him by her side—to her own surprise, she really wanted him to follow her and help. Maybe with him, there’d be confirmation whether she had truly lost something or was just imagining things.
Eventually, he opened them and looked back at her. “Fine. I’ll go with you.”
“Really?”
“I have nothing better to do tonight,” he said, “so I might as well take the bait.”
“Thanks!” she exclaimed, and she waited for him outside. He didn’t change himself any further, probably expecting that it would be quickly dealt with.
Downstairs, Sakura saw that their father was home at last. She didn’t hear him come in, so she was a bit surprised that he would be finished already. Then again, she didn’t know how big a deal the lecture would be, so maybe it was less work than she expected.
“Where are you going, Touya?” he asked.
“Looking for something for Sakura,” he said. “I should be back in a bit, so don’t wait for us for dinner.”
Fujitaka nodded, and they were off. Still, though, he couldn’t help but worry about something, that much was clear when they looked at how his expression shifted as he returned to what he was already doing.
He was wary when she told him it was in the forest near King Penguin Park that she wanted to check. Considering that the sky was dimming into orange hues already, it would soon be dark, and then seeing anything would be impossible, especially if it was something small like a pen. They’d better get this done quickly before they would be lost.
“So,” he asked when they approached the forest, “what did you lose?”
“That’s the thing,” she said, embarrassed. “I don’t even know.”
She expected him to groan or sigh in frustration, to declare this a complete waste of their time and go about with his day, but he just frowned further. Maybe he was still not upset enough to declare this a lost cause—but it was clear that there was also a bit of suspicion in there. What for?
“So why did you want me to come? You really don’t even know?”
“I’m…” she said, but stumbled a bit on her words. That was not helping her at all, she knew that. “Well, I don’t know what I’ve lost. But the thing is, I can’t help but think that it’s something important. Something I really didn’t want to lose. But as long as we don’t see, I can’t know what it is. So if you could help me with that…”
He sighed. “Well, I’ll go. But we should be quick. It’s sundown and dad will be worried sick if we’re out too late.”
“I’ll try,” Sakura said, and ran ahead. “I’ll trace my steps back. That’s the best way to find the spot where I may have lost it.”
Touya sighed again, and he followed her in. At least the forest was quiet at this time of day.
Still, Touya couldn’t help but feel uneasy. What was this thing, this little monster, planning with him?
It didn’t help that she wasn’t going into a safe direction. She stopped regularly, checking the ground for anything, shoving her head into the bushes, and when she found nothing, she just kept getting further in after scratching her head. He made similar efforts, too, just in case there really was something there to find, but it never yielded any other result. Every time, he asked, just to be sure, “Are you finding it?” To which Sakura replied, “No, not yet. It must be farther in,” and they kept moving along. If she was teasing him, she didn’t show it and just kept up appearances. It felt really disturbing to him.
And every time they moved, he knew what place they were approaching. They were going near the cliff. The moon could be seen from there whenever the night came, so it was a beloved sight, but it didn’t make it any less dangerous. It may not be high enough to cause a deadly fall, but you could still get injured from such a height. No doubt that was the endgame there.
Sure enough, before long, they were there. It was already darker when they were there, and the moon was starting to show itself. Sakura was there, and she kept looking in the bushes around, but clearly, she had no luck there either. She looked back at him, the sky behind her, and she looked completely dumbfounded.
“I can’t find it!” she lamented. “What is it? Where is it?” Then she looked up, blinked, and took on a face full of fear. “Do you think…?”
“That it fell down the cliff?” Touya finished for her. “Listen, I know that you…”
He was about to call it out on its plot when his mood made a sudden shift. Carelessly, it seemed, Sakura had turned back towards the cliff and taken a few steps towards it—enough that she was standing on the edge. And then, she bent forward and looked down.
His suspicions either took a backseat to his worry or were completely forgotten. What was she doing?!
“SAKURA! BE CAREFUL!”
And he ran forward. She’d heard him call her name and looked back. When she understood why, she quickly stepped away. Even she didn’t realise what she was doing at this moment—hopefully, it wasn’t too late and he would stop himself just in time.
But Touya didn’t. He seemed surprised again that she would be careful this time. And eventually, his foot stepped on crumbly ground, and it gave out.
“TOUYA!”
She reached forward, tried to grab his hand. She was very close, to the point where it seemed like their fingers touched, but it seemed like he slipped through. She could only look in horror as Touya fell down.
He groaned as he sat up. His right leg hurt like the dickens; no doubt his ankle was sprained. No way he could get back home early with this injury, at least not without making the injury worse with each step. He could just get his back against the earthy cliffside and wait. Eventually, someone would come, no doubt when their father noticed he wasn’t coming back.
And he was annoyed with himself too. If that was the point, then the little monster got him good. Good thing that was the worst that could happen there, at least. But still, that was needlessly cruel.
And there was something else on his mind. Where even was Sakura? Did she try to go back home? She had no reason to. Or maybe…
Soon enough, Sakura came. She must have taken the long way around to reach him. Even after what happened, she looked scared and worried.
“Are you okay?”
“No,” he said. “I’ve got to wait for help now, or for this pain to settle down, before I can go back home. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, looking at the tip of her shoes in shame. “I don’t know what got into me.”
Touya sighed. This playacting had gone on long enough.
“Okay, I’ve had enough,” he said. “The gig better be up.”
“Touya?” She was shocked to hear him talk like that all of a sudden. His voice was so full of venom and spite—he may have called her a monster often, but she usually was just annoyed when he did, because that’s the most he meant with that; this actually stung her, deep in the heart.
“That’s what you wanted, didn’t you?” he spat. “You dragged me here so I’d fall and be hurt like this. Well, you succeeded at that, and I hope you’re happy. That’s what you wanted, right?”
“N-no! I swear I—why would I—?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “So maybe you’d like to tell me the reason for this cruel prank?”
“That wasn’t—I swear I—I mean, I’m your sister! I wouldn’t—”
“There’s no more reason to pretend,” he said. “I know what you are. You’re not fooling me anymore! You took on her appearance to drag me there, didn’t you?”
That accusation stunned her. When she looked back at him, wide-eyed and hurt, his anger lowered—the convictions at the source of it were no longer airtight again. This thing either wasn’t bluffing or was the best actor in whatever its lifetime was. That was enough to make him feel shame at losing his temper, no matter how justified it felt at the moment.
“W-what did you say? What do you think I—”
“Sorry,” he said. “I may have let my anger get the better of me, Sakura. Or—are you really Sakura?”
“Yes!” she said with insistence. “I am! Why would you think I’m not?”
“It’s…”
He stopped before he could go any further than that. He would have to, but he had to get his breathing down for that. Because a possibility had just arisen in his mind. Those two conflicting ideas in his head could only be resolved if this was the truth.
And he absolutely didn’t want it to be.
“It’s just,” he said. Well, that was just great: even after making up his mind, he still couldn’t help but stutter when he talked. “The way I see you… I thought…”
“What? How do you see me? What does this mean?”
At this rate, he had to force it out, blunt though he may come off as.
“I thought you were a ghost!”
There was nothing Sakura could say to that. She was silent, and when Touya opened his eyes again to gauge her reaction, he saw that she seemed completely emotionless too. It wasn’t indifference to that, he knew—it was the complete inability to process it. Either it sounded ridiculous—he had said that he had met with ghosts before, and that was the major reason she was so afraid of them, but even then, it could have been just make believe, tales he told just to mess with her—or she had already felt too much in a single evening, and she just couldn’t register the rest, try to make heads or tails of it. Either way, the way in which her eyes seemed to blank, how her mouth seemed barely thicker than a line drawn with a pencil, didn’t ease his worries—it just reinforced his initial impressions.
She slowly moved her hand towards her face, and looked at it as if it was something strange, something that shouldn’t be there. She moved her fingers, made them do gestures like playing a piano, grabbing something, curling them into a fist. She turned it around, looked at the back of it, as if looking for something new about it. Her expression never changed as she beheld her hand. Her features didn’t move an inch, not a single iota.
“A…” she finally managed to let out for a sound. Even her voice sounded like she had been completely drained of any emotion, any life. She brought her hand down slowly. “A what?”
Touya sighed, and he turned his face away, his eyes closed. It really was his sister. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions at this instant, but he was convinced. He would say that he knew, at this very moment, that this was Sakura.
He moved his hand a bit while he did that, dragging it along the dirt. There were some he had sit on but hadn’t paid them any mind. He was close to a bush, and he didn’t mind it when he moved his hand. But his hands bumped on something then, and it startled him. It felt too different from shrub or wood to be normal. He turned his head towards it, even though he was afraid of what he’d see.
His fear was immediately proven correct. That thing shouldn’t have been there.
And of all places for him to fall, too…
“Sakura…”
“What?” Her voice was regaining emotion. The fact that it was fear was explainable, but still no big reassurance. “Is there a problem?”
“I think I’ve found what you lost.”
After everything, she hesitated to advance. She held back her steps as best she could, and she only barely succeeded in doing that. She couldn’t stop herself from going past him, or close enough to the bush to see it. Touya’s hand was next to something that stuck out of the bush—a shoe, turned upside down, sole facing the sky, and it was still filled with something.
It was on reflex that she made a gasp. It was only at this moment, with how fake it sounded, that she realised that she didn’t feel the air crossing through her throat, even as she tried to take a breath.
Touya knew he’d be the one who should look deeper into it. He breathed in and mentally braced himself for it. He brought both hands through the bush, doing his best to keep his balance as he leaned sideways to do so, and pushed the foliage away. Sakura, once again, hesitated to look, but knew that she would have to. By this point, it would have been a surprise if what they were expecting wasn’t what they found. It would have been hopeful, too, but neither of them had any illusions by that point.
So there was none to quash when they saw it at last. A body, still complete, but no longer breathing. That was sobering enough as is, but it wasn’t all there was to it. It was that of a young girl, rather petite, probably of middle school age, especially with the fact that she was wearing the winter uniform for Tomoeda’s middle school—the same one Sakura was wearing right now, with the small hat too. And the hair matched too, in colour and in length.
If there were any hesitations there, then Touya would just have to flip the body over and show her face. But when he saw Sakura bring her hand forward, he stopped.
“There’s no need,” she said. “I know it now. I know that… it’s me… that I… I…”
At last, she couldn’t resist the urge to cry. Her tears couldn’t reach the ground—they never came out of her spectral body. She jumped into Touya’s lap, and she tried to hold him in her arms, but they passed right through him. Still, he enlaced her in his and did his best to keep them maintained as if he could still hug her. She saw the effort, and did the same to him, doing her best to position herself as if she was crying into his chest.
By all accounts, that was what she was doing, even though there were no tears to stain his shirt. But it didn’t matter—it didn’t make it any less real to them. And after everything, she needed some consolation.