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“Don’t cry, Kotone. This is how it should be.”
—
She really was trying. As much as she’d cried in the moment, sobbing as she cradled his head in her lap, pressing hands desperately to his chest to stop the seemingly endless bleeding while they waited out the end of the Dark Hour, she hadn’t since. Not when she heard people talking about it at school, gossiping about how it wasn’t any shock this had happened to Aragaki, that he always had run with the wrong crowd. Not when she saw Fuuka in the kitchen, stumbling through the recipes he taught her, his apron still hanging up on the wall. Not even when she visited him in the hospital, saw him hooked up to those machines that were keeping him breathing. Keeping him alive.
He looked so young, lying there in the hospital bed, the past few hard years stripped away from him. Looked like the teenager he was. That they both were. His hands were so cold when she held them, when she pressed a kiss to his knuckles, begged him to wake up. He was always so cold, like he was already half a corpse. If it wasn’t for the monitors beeping away, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, she wouldn’t know he was alive at all.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to hurt something. She wanted to hunt down that greasy, long-haired freak and kill him herself. It wouldn’t bring Shinjiro back, but maybe it would ease that anger that clawed itself up her throat every time people mentioned him, or worse, when they pointedly didn’t.
It wasn’t until she walked to his room a week later and found it unlocked, with a box on his desk where he’d left his weapons, body armor, and the charms she'd bought him for battle, and a note in his handwriting that just said ‘give them hell, Kotone’ that she finally broke. That she crawled into his bed, burying herself in blankets that smelled like him, clean soap and fabric softener, deep enough that none of the light could find her at all. Maybe in the darkness, surrounded by him, this was just a bad dream she could come out of, and he would be here and tell her it was okay, she was okay, they were okay.
That was the first time she let herself cry, sobbing into his pillow until her body had enough and she passed out, only to wake up again in a world where he was still gone.
—
“I’m leaving the rest to you.”
—
She wished she had known. She wished he had just told her. She wished he hadn’t spent so long trying to hide what she now knew he knew was coming. Because now, there was a gaping hole where her heart used to be and promises she had to keep. Because if— no, when —he woke up, she needed to show she had tried. That she had stopped the Dark Hour, that she had taken care of the team, taken care of Akihiko-
Akihiko, who spent all his time at the boxing club, or the gym. Even on days they used to hang out, grab something to eat, he was nowhere to be seen. Drowning his grief in training, or visiting Shinjiro again. Who, when she did see him, late at night in the dorms, had nothing to say but assurances that he would get stronger, for Shinji. That he would want them to move forward.
It pissed her off. Worse, it made her eyes sting. And she had promised Shinjiro she wouldn’t cry, so she always excused herself quickly when he talked like that. On the nights when she came downstairs later, to grab water and something to eat while everyone else was sleeping so they couldn’t give her that look, she would sometimes walk to Akihiko’s door and listen to him, the thud of fists hitting punching bags. The quiet shake of breathing when you’re trying not to cry. And she needed to fix it, to try and be there for him. Because she promised, she promised Shinji she would take care of him, even if she hadn’t understood why at the time. But she couldn’t, not when she hadn’t even picked up the broken pieces of herself.
She spent the night there once, a stupid accident, fell asleep with her back to the wall outside Akihiko’s room because even she could only keep running on fumes for so long. When she woke up, earlier than her alarm would usually wake her, it was because Mitsuru was adjusting what she thought was a blanket over her. But when she looked down it was a spare coat of Shinji’s, and it was heavy and warm and Mitsuru was looking at her with such concern, and somewhere in the back of her mind she registered she should be worried about being on the receiving end of one of Mitsuru’s executions, or worse, an apology, as if that would fix things. Like empty words could mean anything.
It didn’t come, though. Mitsuru just watched her, for what felt like forever, before she sat down on the floor next to her, silent and solid, and they just breathed. Until Akihiko came out as well for his morning jog, and saw them on the floor. Until he joined them down there too, his knee bumping into Kotone’s, and his hand found hers under the jacket, and he squeezed.
And Kotone broke her promise for the second time, because here, surrounded by the two who probably knew Shinji best, she started crying again.
—
”You don’t have to forgive me, but forgive everything else."
—
It was so stupid. He was stupid. How he always assumed she would blame him, or wake up one day and hate him. He was the only one she didn’t.
Her exploration team, when she finally pulled herself together enough to bring S.E.E.S. to Tartarus again, was Yukari, and Aigis, and Junpei. They weren’t involved, like the others. They didn’t love Shinji, the same way she did, or Akihiko, or Koromaru, or Mitsuru. It wasn’t Akihiko’s fault, or Mitsuru’s. It certainly wasn’t Koro’s. It wasn’t even Ken’s, not really. Ken was just a grieving kid, like she had been, like Shinji was once.
(And wasn’t that the cycle? Children with dead parents trying to do something good and making a new orphan. Maybe the world was nothing but dead parents and grieving children. Maybe grief was all that was left.)
But she couldn’t focus, when the team was thick with the grief and uncertainty of Shinjiro’s fate, and she had to lead them. She couldn’t claw him back to her, out of his coma and into her arms, but she could take the Dark Hour away, this thing that ruined his life, and Ken’s. Had taken so much from all of them. So it was her and the second years, working their way through the tower. Dimly, she knew it would be easier if she had Akihiko, he was always her heaviest hitter, except for-
That would remind her of when Shinjiro was here, too, and the grief choked her until she slammed her hockey stick into another shadow, pulverizing it into nothing.
The team still wasn’t speaking to her, really. Or, more accurately, she wasn’t talking to them. And she really did feel guilty about it, because she wasn’t the only one who lost him, the only one who cared. She knew that. But they had finally started mentioning Shinjiro by name, and it was empty assurances that he would wake up, when the Dark Hour was gone he would come back, and they needed to do their best for him until then, and they would throw a party when he was back, and, and, andandand-
So her life was Tartarus, and student council, and volleyball, and fashion club, and the health committee. Sundays with Akinari (who at least had the decency to tell her he was dying from the start. Maybe she did blame Shinjiro a little bit, but she would forgive him in a heartbeat if it meant he would wake up) and Saturdays with an alcoholic monk because, frankly, he was such an asshole that it distracted from how much everything hurt. And on, and on, until it was nearly the end of this awful, awful month without him. Feeling worse and worse about shrugging Yukari and Junpei off after class, but she just couldn’t, even if they were her best friends.
Until she came home early from the dorms, and saw it was just her, and Koromaru, and Ken.
She wanted to turn and run, as Ken’s eyes settled on her and she could see everything behind them that he hadn’t learned to hide yet. But Shinjiro had risked his life to protect Ken. And it wasn’t his fault, she reminded herself again, it was Takaya, it was Takaya-
“Kotone-san?”
She blinked, looked at Ken, who had come half a step closer, was still staring up at her. His shoulders were trembling. Why were they trembling?
”Kotone-san, I’m so- I’m sorry. I’m so sorry-“
And she was 7 years old with two dead parents again, and the world was nothing but grief, and there were enough dead to drown in. She wasn’t really aware of what she was doing as she dropped to a knee, but she hugged Ken, because, “It’s not your fault. Shinji- Aragaki-senpai, he made his choice. This wasn’t your fault. I know he didn’t regret it.”
And it was true, wasn’t it? Shinji didn’t regret this. Even if he had died saving Ken, he never would have regretted it for a moment. So she hugged Ken as he cried, until she was also crying (a third time, Shinji should have known this was a promise she couldn’t keep), and Koromaru nosed in because he missed him too, and this was ridiculous, wasn’t it? The three of them crying on the floor, because of Shinjiro. He would hate it. He wouldn’t think he deserved it. He would be wrong.
But eventually, tears dried up, and she had a splitting headache, but Ken hadn’t had anything to eat, so Kotone took him to Wild Duck, because that’s what Shinji would do. Well- No, he would probably cook something for the kid, but Kotone wasn’t up for that yet, not that space that was so specifically his in a way even his room wasn’t. Besides, she wasn’t even sure what kind of food Ken liked.
And she wasn’t okay. Not really. Maybe not ever. But maybe this was what the beginning of forgiveness felt like. For Ken, pulling Shinji away into that alley. For Akihiko, for not putting the date together faster, for shutting them all out. For Shinjiro, for hiding all of these things from her even as he told her he loved her. And for herself, for not noticing any of these things, for being too late. Always too late.
And when November comes around, for the first time since October 4th, Kotone can almost breathe again.