The rapid tapping of his feet shot through the alley as Aqua hurried down the street. His step was hasty, and his gaze flicked from corner to corner and window to window. The wind, which had picked up again over the course of the day, blew through his hair and chilled him through the very thin set of clothes he wore. The street lamps around him hadn't begun to glow yet, even though the sun was already almost entirely hidden beyond the horizon.
—
After he had snuck out of Akane's place the same way he came in, he felt a relief he hadn't felt in a very long time. He finally felt like he had been freed from the shackles that bound him for the entirety of his life. Kamiki was dead, Ruby's career was safe, and he was out of any danger as well.
Therefore, with his growling stomach forgotten and his hurting feet ignored, he decided to go on a walk. Back in his past life, he often went on walks. They were not sophisticated hikes or anything, but they calmed him down whenever he had to work long hours.
"Now that it is all finally over, maybe I should go back to being a doctor after all." Aqua walked through a quiet park. The sun had not yet begun to vanish, so it was still tainting the entire world around him in a warm orange. "It doesn't matter what I did in the past. I can still do so much good for others. I cannot let this talent go to waste…"
"I could even go back to that run-down hospital in Takachiho. If the situation is still the same as it was 20 years ago, then they are still quite understaffed." Aqua shook his head, a smile playing over his lips. The park he was in wasn't particularly big, but it was still enough for one to lose himself in when just walking. "God, Ruby would probably hate me if I just up and left her like that… Rightfully so, I can't just leave her behind like that. She has grown into a really strong woman… she can be quite scary even at times… but she still depends on me."
"And even if she wouldn't need me, I probably shouldn't go back. Like, who would leave behind not only Tokyo but also everybody they knew to live in some small town… Unless, If-" With his head somewhere completely else, he didn't notice the small root sticking out of the path ahead of him. Mid-step it caught his foot and sent him flying towards the floor. "Fuck-" he groaned. His hands were quick enough to feather his fall and protect his face, but his knees and palms made direct contact with the hard ground beneath him.
"I always knew this park needed renovations, but I never thought it would be this bad," he muttered under his breath, looking at his bruised palms for a moment before inspecting his knees as well. "Huh, seems like I turned a bit clumsy." He rubbed over his knees. The pants didn't rip, but he could feel his skin underneath break regardless. "Well, it can't be helped," he giggled, getting back up without checking his injuries any closer.
Luckily, it had not rained today, so after a quick dust-off, if not more closely examined, he looked basically like new. "Maybe this was nature's way to tell me off," he laughed, continuing on his way. "Its way of telling me to not return…"
"I still like it… Maybe if Akane would come with me…" his words trailed off. "No, I couldn't do this to her. There are probably zero acting gigs down in Miyazaki… and Ruby as well…" His vacant gaze caught his palms in its sight again. When it did, he stopped dead in his tracks.
The small spots where the skin ripped enough for blood to show made him nauseous. His gaze shot up again to be met by a world that spun and contorted. "Ruby… How could I not have thought of this earlier… This is bad…" he panted. His nausea turned into selective hyperawareness for the world around him in an instant. The cawing of nearby crows, the sounds of playing children somewhere far off, and the wet splashing noises of a nearby pond took control over his brain.
"No. It's impossible. It can't be. But what if it is?" he panted. Right before him, the path he stood on split in two. Left and right. Or, perhaps it did not. It didn't split into two. It split into three. Left, right, and a 4-meter-deep ditch in the front.
"How did this slip past me? Am I really this stupid? Isn't it obvious what happened?" He looked down the small cliff before him. It looked identical to the one from all those years ago, the one he was pushed down to meet his maker, just not as high. Then he heard it. First a rustling, followed by steps coming from behind him. They approached faster than he could turn. Aqua's heart made his entire body beat along with every pulse of blood it sent through him as he still whipped around as fast as he could. However, by the time he had turned, it was already too late. The man was too close.
They were face to face.
Aqua couldn't dodge to the side anymore.
He was too slow.
He was too out of shape.
He was too lost in his mind.
Then the man continued, dodging past Aqua and turning down the path to continue on his jog.
Aqua sank to his knees. It hurt for a moment when his bruised knees met the floor again, but he was too out of it to care. His right hand gripped his chest painfully as he spat the air out of his lungs. His breathing was shaky and his legs even more so, but after no more than a few seconds he was back on his legs. He needed to keep moving, because his own death wasn't what he feared just now.
—
"I'll go out with some friends. Don't wait for me," Ruby shouted through the house as she basically leapt down the stairs. She was dressed in a pink college jacket, matched with plain white sneakers and a really short pair of jean shorts. All those things she bought during her shopping trip, which was by now a few days in the past.
Miyako was a firm believer in not trying to force success, so after their show was such a big flop, she had decided to give the girls a few days off to cool down. Miyako had hoped she could find a quiet moment to talk to Ruby about what happened at their show, but now it was already the second to last day of their break, and Ruby had spent almost every waking moment not at home. And now she tried to head out again? Certainly not.
"Wait!" Miyako shouted back, not trying to let Ruby slip away again. It was certainly everything but the quiet moment she had hoped for, but it was just as certainly better than not talking to her at all.
A moment later Miyako burst through the door that led up to their dining room. Ruby didn't turn, but at least she halted. "Please wait. I need to talk to you. It's important," Miyako panted, her eyes looking somewhat pleading as she stared a hole into the back of Ruby's head.
Ruby didn't turn for a long moment. Her body looked like it was completely frozen in place. Then she spun around, a beaming smile decorating her face. "Sure. It's about my recent performance again, right?"
"Yes, but also not really… Let's sit down for this, alright?"
"Alrighty," Ruby sang, dancing past Miyako into the dining room.
"So, Miyaemon, what did you want to talk about?" Ruby said, already sitting at the table, when Miyako poked her head through the door and stepped in the room as well.
"It is… I-... Do you want to drink something?" Miyako said, already on her way to the kitchen.
"Drink something? Sure, uhm… I want tea. Can I have tea?" Ruby said, turning in her seat to follow Miyako with her gaze.
Miyako turned the kettle on and pulled a box of tea packs out of the cupboard, all while intentionally dodging Ruby's lingering gaze. "As you already guessed, this is about B-Komachi… And as you guessed as well, about your performance. In two days we'll resume with practice. We cannot afford to wait any longer. Our next venue is already set to be in about a week. I-"
"It's alright," Ruby interrupted. "I don't need to wait longer… This was a one-time slip-up because of the long break we took. It won't happen again… promised."
Miyako sighed, gently shaking her head while a smile she couldn't particularly hide formed on her face due to Ruby's resilience. "That's good to hear… really…" Miyako poured the, by now close-to-boiling, water in a cup and put the bag filled with various herbs in alongside it. "Social media doesn't even really seem to care as well, so this won't have any repercussions… Just try to… try to not let something like that happen again. I'm not giving this advice as your manager, but as your mother…" Miyako placed the cup down in front of Ruby before she sat down opposite of her.
Ruby's eyes mustered Miyako's face for a moment before her head darted down. Slowly, she stirred in her tea, a restless silence falling over the room. "That's- That's so… That is totally cute of you," Ruby said, looking back up with her eyes beaming. "Thank you."
"Cute?" Miyako laughed. "Oh please… and don't thank me before you've heard my opinion as your manager."
"Your opinion as my manager?" Ruby asked before she took a short sip from her tea. "Ple- Ouch- Damn-" she mouthed as the hot water burned her lips and gums lightly.
"Yes, my opinion as your manager," Miyako repeated when Ruby's barrage of whimpery noises stopped again. "My opinion as the manager of B-Komachi is… if this happens again, Mem-Cho is going to perform as the center for an indefinite amount of time."
"The center… You wanna take my center… But mo-" Ruby paused. "It's okay." She took another sip of the tea, swallowing the tea down without even making a face. "I believe the center belongs to the best idol of the group… If I am not the best idol anymore, then I shouldn't have it. On the contrary, even. If I would keep it even when I'm not the best idol anymore, then I wouldn't be motivated to improve… So it's okay."
"Exactly," Miyako nodded, leaning a bit back in her seat.
"Thank you for still giving me another chance, though," Ruby said while her eyes regained the spark they had lost momentarily when Miyako broke the news.
"Still thanking me, huh, You are-" Miyako was interrupted as the doorbell rang. It echoed through the house, making Miyako fall silent and Ruby shoot up out of her seat.
"I get it," she said, grabbing her cup from the table and heading for the door as fast as she could without spilling anything.
"I can also-" Miyako still tried to stop her, but Ruby had already shut the door to the hallway behind her.
Why is she so happy today…?
I wonder if something could've happened to make her behave that way.
Perhaps I am just reading too much into it. She is probably just motivated.
Or she's happy to go out and see her friends. It could be anything, so I should just be happy that she's happy.
But her eyes, they-
The shrill sound of ceramic shattering screamed through the house. It tore Miyako out of her thoughts. A sharp shiver that made her blood run cold shot up her spine at light speed as she shot up from her chair equally as fast. Before she could even take a single step, though, a high-pitched scream ripped through the air around her. If the cup wouldn't have shattered moments ago already, said scream would've probably done the job as well.
Miyako couldn't allow herself to freeze because of this. This situation was the fight-or-flight situation she never knew would come — and she chose to fight.
She leapt through the dining room while her hands instinctively clenched themselves into fists. Her movements were somewhat uncoordinated since the last time she had moved at such speeds was long before Ruby was even born, so before she could take a second step, she hit a counter, knocking over some glasses that were placed on top of it.
After tumbling for a moment, she regained her composure, reaching for a knife before crossing the rest of the way in between her and the hallway in a single step. Instead of opening the door, she just crashed through it with her shoulder first.
Miyako paused. The knife dropped to the floor. Her eyes turned wide. "A-Aqua?" she stammered, gripping the wall to keep herself from falling over.
…
"Ruby, could you please finally get off my lap…? And the injury on my hand is really not that bad either. It's just a bruise. You don't have to-" Aqua's sentence was cut short as Ruby sprayed the burning alcohol-based sanitizer on his palm. "Ouch," he said without trying to fight her off.
The moment Aqua came back half an hour ago was the moment Ruby threw every plan she had for that day over board. He became her sole point of attention, so much so that she didn't get up from his lap for even a moment.
"Okay, just once more so I get this right. What you're saying is, your charges were just dropped, and they let you go like nothing ever happened?" Miyako asked, sitting in an armchair opposite of Ruby and Aqua.
"Exactly. That's what he said," Ruby replied in Aqua's stead, looking over her shoulder while sitting astride from him in his lap. "The weird guy accepted that he was in the wrong, so they let Aqua go."
"That's mostly right," Aqua agreed with what Ruby said as he looked past her face and at Miyako.
"But didn't they plan on charging you with attempted murder…? The lawyers I spoke to told me that even if the victim were to refrain from suing, then the state would take the case to trial instead." Miyako said as she leaned back in her armchair, a curious frown running over her forehead.
"From what I've been told, the guy retracted his initial statement in some way. This way it wasn't attempted murder anymore, but something else entirely. And apparently they couldn't have me in an interrogation cell for any longer now that it wasn't attempted murder anymore," Aqua lied.
Miyako looked around the room for a moment, biting into her upper lip. Then the frown on her forehead turned into utter relief.
Just then Ruby leaned in more. With her chin resting on his shoulder and her arms wrapped around his back, their torsos were pressed together so closely, not even a sheet of paper would've fit between them. "You stink," Ruby mumbled, but her arms just closed tighter around him. If she were a cat, she would definitely be purring right now.
Aqua was hesitant at first, but after a few short moments, he not only wrapped one of his arms around her as well, but also used the other to gently comb through her hair and caress her scalp. "I would go shower, but for that to happen a certain someone needs to get off me," he mumbled.
"Not happening," Ruby responded without a second of hesitation. "You scared me so much. I hope you know that."
"I know… Your career would've been done for if I would've been found guilty."
"This ain't about my career, dummy," Ruby mumbled. A gasp escaped Aqua's lips as she pinched the flesh of his hips through his shirt.
"I know… I know, Ruby," he mumbled, continuing to carefully follow the flow of her soft and silky hair.
—
"Uh, big bro, by the way…" Ruby said on her way up the stairs as she tugged him along behind her with their fingers intertwined. "Your room is…" she opened the door to *his* room, clothes of hers still covering every surface. "...mine now."
Aqua sighed as his eyes met the mess she had made out of his once perfectly organized room. Sure, he had slacked off as well over the past month, but he had never before seen it in such a state. Especially since Ruby was mostly a tidy person as well.
"Can I please keep it for now…?" Ruby turned around, also taking his other hand into hers. "I promise I'll give it back… But I don't want to clean right now." She tugged his arms up and down while also pulling herself a bit closer. "Please, big bro."
Aqua sighed once more. "But only because I don't wanna clean either," he agreed.
"You're the best." Ruby let go of his hands and turned away, letting herself fall backwards onto his bed.
"I'll go shower now… In case we don't see each other again, goodnight, Ruby."
"Goodnight, bro," Ruby shouted after Aqua after he had already closed the door.
It feels weird to be home again… Hard to believe I planned on never returning… to never see this place again… to never shower in this shower again… to never sleep in my bed again, though that won't happen any time soon regardless I assume… Crazy that I can't even remember why I wanted to never see any of this again in the first place.
The hot water pouring down his skin felt so good. He was also allowed to shower in jail, but the water was cold and the soap was probably for dishes. When compared to that, his simple bathroom felt like a sheikh's.
The only problem was it burnt a bit.
His knees, they burned.
I totally overreacted earlier… Ruby is safe and sound… for now. The possibility that whoever wanted me out of jail didn't do it to save me but rather to get to me is not that big, but it is there regardless.
Depending on how well they know me, they would definitely go for Ruby or Akane… maybe Kana… I have to do something. Exactly, this has to be my primary concern for now. I have to find out who got me out of jail and what their intentions were in doing so.
Aqua poured actual shampoo on his scalp for the first time in easily 3 weeks. His jail time might've been only 10 days, but he was a stinky boy even before. Not anymore though. From now on he will wash his hair like a good clean boy.
Akane's father is a police officer, so maybe if I play my cards right, then I could find something about this thing through his login. If I really want to do this, then I have to involve Akane after all…
Aqua cleaned the shampoo and body wash off himself and stepped out of the shower. He had spent so much time thinking, his skin started to shrivel up, and every surface in the bathroom was covered by fog.
I have to do it. For Ruby's sake and for her sake as well.
A glance of his own reflection in the almost completely fogged-up mirror met his eye. With his malnourished features and his damp hair far too long for his taste, he looked almost like Kurt Cobain if he would've been 10 years younger. He quickly looked away and grabbed his bathrobe off the rag.
"Before I do anything, though, I should probably get a new haircut." Aqua said under his breath while stepping out of the warm bathroom into the cool hallway. When the cold air hit his only sparingly covered body, he pulled the bathrobe tighter around his body. However, the cold ground against his bare soles was even more chilly than the air, so he didn't waste any time, quickly speed-waddling to his room.
By the time he reached the door, his once warm feet were basically frozen solid. He quickly pushed the handle down and hushed inside before shutting the door just as quickly. "It's freezing. Why did nobody turn the rad-"
"Aqua?" he was interrupted.
In his hurry, he had not realized that he walked towards where his room had been for the past decade, not where his room was now. On the other end of the room lay Ruby. She was almost invisible, hidden away by a few big plushes of various animals strategically placed all around her.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I confused our rooms," Aqua said while already retreating back through the door. "Anyway, sweet drea-"
Aqua was interrupted again.
"If you're already here, why don't you stay for a while longer?" Ruby asked while she was nervously shifting around in the bed, quickly tossing some of her plushies to the side before scooting over herself and making a bit of space for him in the small bed.
Aqua visibly weighed his options for a moment. He wanted nothing more than to sink into his bed and fall asleep right now, but something kept him from leaving. Perhaps it was the gentle warmth of his old room that won over the cold darkness of the hallway. Perhaps it was that he just couldn't deny Ruby her wish, not today at least. He shut the door again and strolled over to Ruby, but instead of sliding into bed next to her, he sat down on the floor, leaning against the corner built from the bedframe and wall.
"You do yours," Ruby shrugged her shoulders before she rather quickly took back the space on the bed that would've been contained within her more than generous offer.
The floor here was not nearly as cold as the floor in the hallway, so even when minute after minute went by without Ruby even saying a single word, Aqua still didn't make any move to ask her what was actually going on. With the floor like that, too warm to complain but too hard to get truly comfortable, he could do nothing but wait. Nearly ten minutes of silence between them had passed when a faint rustling of sheets could be heard next to Aqua. When he turned to look, Ruby had her arm raised towards the ceiling, seemingly reaching for something he couldn't see.
"What are you doing, Ruby?" he asked, to which he got no answer, not even a reaction. Ruby just kept her arm extended for easily another minute before she let it slump back down to her side onto the mattress.
"Give me another look at your hands." Before Aqua had time to even react, Ruby already took his hand and pulled it deep under her covers. Aqua frowned at first, but when he felt how both of Ruby's smaller hands wrapped around his, the muscles in his face loosened up into an even calmer state than before.
"Ruby, when I came in, the light was still on, but you were already in bed… Did you forget to turn it off?"
Ruby's hold around his hand tensed up. It was just a bit, so little that if Aqua hadn't paid attention he wouldn't have even noticed it, but Aqua did pay attention; he always did. "Yeah… It happens sometimes since in this room I can't turn the light off while in bed, and then I am just a teeny tiny bit too tired to get up again… It doesn't really bother me, though," Ruby replied.
"When I leave later… Do you want me to turn it off for you?"
Ruby shook her head. Her messy hair, which lay all around her head, looked like waves on the pillow as it moved back and forth alongside. "No… Don't do that."
"You know, sleeping with the lights on isn't good for you." Aqua's hand, which had remained mostly limp up to this point, finally squeezed back. It was a gentle squeeze. It was just enough for him to signal her that he was there.
"Back in the hospital it was never really dark either… or silent…" Ruby mumbled.
"Well, we know how that ended," he tried to joke, but when no answer of Ruby's followed within the small pause he made, he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. Let's not speak about that topic…"
"Actually… I mean, only if you don't mind, of course, I would like to speak about it," Ruby replied, rolling onto her side to get a better view of Aqua's face once again.
"I always wanted to ask you something… Back when you were a doctor… Did you like it? Back then it was obviously the best time of my life, but whenever I think back now, you always seemed a bit gloomy… perhaps melancholic. I think what I wanna ask is… were you happy?"
A distant smile crossed Aqua's face as he pushed himself a bit off the wall. Kneeling now, his and Ruby's faces got dangerously close. Ruby's breathing hitched when his free hand moved up to her face and carefully tugged a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Of course I was… It was a bit sad from time to time, but whenever I could help people, it… It just made life worth living."
Ruby frowned for a moment before a satisfied grin decorated her pinkish cheeks. One of her hands came up from underneath her blanket and booped his nose before she let her fall back down into her pillows. "You're always so silly," she mumbled, stretching her body before quickly wrapping her hand back around Aqua's. "Do you think you could tell me a story from back then…? When you think back to your old life, what is the happiest memory that shoots right into your mind?"
Aqua thought for a moment before he shook his head, unable to hold his lips back from forming a smile. "I got something… but that was with you, so it-"
"Out with it," Ruby interrupted… Three times the charm, I suppose.
"Well, if you want me to…" Aqua mumbled, also sitting back down against the wall.
"It was quite a rainy day… Probably three or so months after you were first admitted to the hospital… It was around the time where your condition first began to show signs of improvement… Anyway… On that day, when I wanted to check on you, you were just gone. Looking back, we should've definitely called the police. However, six months before that something similar happened, so the hospital would've probably gotten shut down if I would have reported it. Instead, I just ran out into the rain and began the search on my own. Back then my reasoning was that you couldn't have gotten far, but ever since I fell down that cliff, I know that this reasoning was a bit foolish.
"I searched for nearly an hour before I finally found you… You were waiting at a bus stop, all alone without even knowing that the buses to the hospital never drove when it rained much… I just sat down next to you, which was probably a bad decision as well. You were wet to your core… A bit longer and you would've gotten a cold. Something like that could have very well been deadly back then for you… Anyway, after 20 minutes you finally told me that you wanted to go and visit your mom now that you are healthier… You were nowhere near healthy enough for that journey, but that was obviously not what I told you back then… I lied to you… I lied as I did so often… I lied and told you that your mom would come to visit you in a few days, so if you were to leave now, she would be confused where you've wandered off to.
"I don't think you fully believed me, but it was enough for you to come back with me… Back at the hospital, after we both changed back into dry clothes, we talked. To be honest, I forgot what we talked about… This is probably not the kind of happy memory you wanted, but it was the first time we actually spoke to one another… I mean, really spoke to one another instead of just talking… Argh, damn it… What did we talk about again…? Can you remember?"
Aqua listened to the silence around them for a good ten seconds before he tried again. "Can you remember?" he asked, once again without any luck.
"Ruby?"
He finally shifted to look at her. When he did, he finally understood. Over the course of his story, her eyes shut and her breathing turned far more regular than before. Her hands, while they remained wrapped around his hand, had lost their firm hold as well, and were now held up more by him than her. The blanket that had covered her all the way up to her chin back when he entered the room slipped down a bit and was now giving way for Aqua to see the top she wore.
It was a simple and basically plain hoodie. He actually had a similar one. It was the one with the word "twins" written across it. Aqua took in the sight for a moment before a smirk played over his face as he realized that he did not just own the counter piece. The one she wore was his counterpiece.
"I really hope you can get over what happened…" he said to himself, now with his voice lowered by a few decibels to not accidentally wake her back up.
He stayed for a while longer, just watching over her. Only when she began to drool out her mouth, signaling that she had finally entered truly deep sleep, did he silently get up. Carefully, he freed his hand from in between hers and pulled the blanket back up to her chin. Yet still, he couldn't take his eyes off her already.
For the first time ever, he felt like he had truly redeemed himself. It was an invigorating warmth that quickly spread through his entire body. About a month ago, she wouldn't have even trusted him enough to drink from a glass he got her, and now it was his voice, his tale, and his hand that made her feel comfortable enough to fall asleep right then and there.
She trusted him with all her heart once again.
At the door, he looked back one last time. His index finger hovered over the lightswitch. Uncertain, he mustered the glaring light and then her huddled-up figure. A quiet click that was followed by darkness finally allowed him to find the heart to look away, finally stepping out and shutting the door behind him.
The dim light of the digital clock on the counter in the hallway told him it was way past 12am already. He stepped into his new room, finally also getting to set sight on it all. He obviously knew what Ruby's room looked like, but having to stay in it and even sleep in her bed was still a foreign feeling to him. This was especially because, apart from taking her plushies and her makeup with her, she had left every last thing she owned completely untouched.
"They already repaired the window…" he mumbled to himself as he strolled over to it and looked outside. He could barely see a thing since, unlike his room, hers pointed into their dark yard instead of towards the dimly lit road.
"I can totally understand her… For me it's just a room, but for her it's probably far more than that… She can stay there for however long she needs to. I just don't know how I should tell her without hitting the nail on the head too hard." He drew the curtains shut and walked back to her bed on the other end of the room.
'I messed up really much over the course of this life… I really don't know how anyone can still trust me… but that feeling I just felt… I want to feel it again… I have to rebuild the bridges I burnt down over the past months,' he thought as he first sat down and then lay back. 'Akane, Miyako, Ruby, Ichigo, Taishi, Mem, Kana… Kana!' He had just finally put himself to rest in Ruby's bed when he shot up again. "I should finally man up and apologize to Kana… But how…? Just texting her to meet up is far too plain… I think I have an idea…" His eyes darted over to Ruby's desk, but before they could reach it, they stopped. Instead of going where he wanted them to be, they were fixated on Ruby's light switch. A steady red light shone from it through the dark room.
"No way- I- Is-?" he growled under his breath as he shot up from the bed. He knew that light. He used this method himself for a while back when he tried to find his father. He skipped through Ruby's room in no time and ripped the light switch cover off with ease. His face dropped further as the confirmation to his suspicion hid behind it. Small, almost minuscule but definitely there, a camera pointing directly at Ruby's bed through the small see-through part of the light switch cover.