Chapter Text
When time folded itself around her, it was warmer than she imagined it would be.
Softer.
Like she’d been wrapped in a quilt resting by a fireplace. It might have even be comforting, had it not been for the terror racing through her veins. You don’t get to cheat time and walk away without a few scratches.
At least, that’s what Tsuchigomori-sensei had told her. Admittedly, they both knew very little about the intricacies of time travel.
Nene braced herself for the impact of landing in a new decade. Her eyes scrunched shut, her hands fisted at her sides. But it was nothing like she’d expected. One moment she was standing in front of the door, Tsuchigomori-sensei by her side. Time held her briefly, almost tenderly. The next moment her eyes were adjusting to the dim light of an empty classroom.
Not much had changed. The classroom was nearly identical to the way it would look in her time. Same chalkboard, same wonky chairs, same windows filtering the last rays of sunset. A funny thought crossed her mind, that the school’s funding was probably pretty pitiful if it couldn’t make at least a few restorations in so many decades, but there were more important things to worry about at the moment.
She looked down at herself: still in one piece. That was good. A breathy sort of laugh escaped her. Step one of their plan had gone off without a hitch. Her knees began to buckle, and she lowered herself gracelessly into the nearest chair. Another laugh bubbled up from her chest. This one sounded less breathy and a little more unhinged.
That would not do. There was no time for her mind to slip, especially when she’d only just begun. That good cry she was so desperately craving would have to wait. She took a deep breath and unclenched her fist–the one holding the list, not the one holding the envelope with Tsuchigomori-sensei’s letter. She laid it down on the desk in front of her and tried to smooth out its creases as best she could.
Step 1: Don’t Die
Off to a great start.
Step 2: Check the Date
Yes, that would probably be helpful. Tsuchigomori-sensei had made it clear that they could possibly get her near the date she was aiming for, but there was no way to narrow it down with precision. She looked around the room, searching for a date. There, on the chalkboard, written in white: December 20.
This could be bad, or really bad. She needed the year. It was a long shot, but she pulled out her phone to check. The screen lit up with the familiar background of her and Aoi smiling together. The time and date were the same as when she’d warped through the doorway in her time. There were no bars of signal, either. Useless.
There had to be a newspaper somewhere nearby.
After a few minutes of futile searching, she found one on the teacher’s podium–The Full Moon News. She unfolded the paper. The headline took up the first quarter of the page and caught her eye immediately. TEMPERATURES DROP BELOW FREEZING EARLIER THAN USUAL THIS YEAR. In the top corner it was dated December 20, 1968. She’d traveled over fifty years.
The newspaper dropped from her hand to the podium with a dull thud. She was too early. A little more than seven months too early. Her vision swam with the tears she’d been suppressing, but she fought them back. Action now. Crying later.
She looked down at her crumpled to-do list.
Step 3: Find Tsuchigomori-sensei
She could do that. The thought of a familiar face was comforting. He’d given her the address for the apartment where he’d lived during the Sixties. And she still had his letter. Everything was going to be fine. She puffed out her chest and pushed her shoulders back, ready for battle.
That was the thing about second chances: they demanded change. This time she’d get it right.
—
If she was hoping to get by inconspicuously, those dreams were dashed the instant she walked outside the Kamome Academy gate.
The evening sky was a deep blue, the last of the rays of daylight having faded only minutes ago. Despite this, the sidewalks were full of people. Strings of lights and wreaths were hung outside every store she passed. The air smelled of cinnamon and the promise of snow. She’d arrived only five days before Christmas; was it really any wonder the streets were so full?
Families browsed outdoor holiday displays. Children looked on with wide eyes, their hands and noses pressed to the windows of shops selling toys and candies. Men in business suits headed home with their tired gazes on the sidewalk, and women corralled small children to their sides with the reminder of supper.
She’d never considered herself a provocative dresser, but she certainly felt like one tonight. Her school-issued dress, which ended a couple of inches above her knee, drew the attention of men and women alike. Their expressions ranged from mild curiosity to blatant disgust. Her dark tights did little to conceal her legs.
The women she passed on the street were dressed in ankle length skirts and aprons, their hair done up higher than was the fashion of Nene’s time. Woven baskets teeming with fish, vegetables, and tofu rested in the crooks of their arms. Many of them were trailed by small children, too young to attend school. Others walked with babies wrapped in cloth, secured to their backs. They stole glances at her from under their lashes and from the corners of their eyes. Her face flushed under their scrutiny. People in the Sixties were a bit more… critical than she’d expected. In this time, Kamome was a relatively new suburban city, still transitioning from its rural beginnings. Maybe she could've blended in in one of the bigger, urban cities, but not here. Not yet, at least.
She stood out, and that was putting it nicely. A few months ago she might’ve been mortified over this type of attention, but she hadn’t been the same since Hanako-kun… well.
Ever since he passed on, Nene had been a bit of a mess. Weepy and distraught at first, yes, then increasingly apathetic to the world around her. Things like heart-fluttering romance and her desire for social approval had fallen to the wayside in favor of grief. Once she’d come up with a plan to save him, she’d been driven by a single-minded desire, giving little thought to anything or anyone else.
A passing child stared at her with his mouth hanging slightly open; his mother dragged him along by the hand. Nene fidgeted with her skull brooch and turned her attention back to the task at hand. There would be time to feel self-conscious when she’d found the apartment.
Her pace slowed as she approached a convenience store on the corner. She’d already passed this very store three times now. To be fair, there were fewer street lights than there were in her time, and these lights were much dimmer. Not to mention the layout of the town had changed quite a bit. She walked up to one of the display windows and used its light to discern Tsuchigomori’s faint writing. A growing sense of unease was creeping at the edges of her mind. There was a knot in her throat, and it ached as she swallowed past it.
No crying.
An approaching figure caught her attention. “Hello,” she said, reaching out her hand toward a man passing by. His suit was rumpled from a day’s worth of work, and his expression was creased with exhaustion. He paused at Nene’s voice and lifted his eyes to her. His gaze quickly shifted from glazed indifference to confusion. “Can you please tell me where to find this address?” she pointed to the writing on the back of her to-do list.
If Nene’s attire bewildered him, he held his tongue on the matter. He pointed a finger in the direction he was currently walking.
“Oh, thank you very much.”
She followed a few feet behind him for a minute or so. Silly as it was, she couldn’t help but wonder if he was uncomfortable being seen with her. When they approached the opening of an alleyway between two buildings Nene had passed several times, he pointed once more down the darkened path. Just visible in the glow of the streetlight was a door, not too far into the alley.
“Thank you, again,” she said.
He nodded and left her without a word.
She walked up to the door and spotted an engraved name plate, fixed at eye level; it read: Tsuchigomori.
Relief overflowed, sweet on her tongue. She was safe.
Nene noted the lack of holiday decor adorning his door. It was as strong a sign as any that this was the correct place. A button–what she assumed to be the doorbell–waited by the name plate. She pressed it once and a buzz rang from somewhere inside. After a few moments without response, she rang it again. And again.
“Tsuchigomori-sensei?” she called. It probably wasn’t going to help; he wouldn’t recognize her voice. They weren’t supposed to meet for many more years. Her breath fogged up in front of her and she shivered, the thin cotton of her dress leaving her defenseless against the frigid air. She pressed the button again, longer this time, and listened to the faint buzzing coming from inside.
Something fluttered past her nose and her eyes crossed in their attempt to follow it. A butterfly… or a moth? Her gaze veered to watched it. She turned until her back was to the door. The insect flitted up and over toward the streetlight at the entrance of the alleyway, hovering around its pale, yellow glow.
Definitely a moth.
Without warning, she heard the creak of the door opening behind her, and something gripped her by the ankles, yanking her off balance. Her shriek was cut off by a hand covering her mouth. She was pulled inside the apartment a second before the door slammed shut on the night.
Against her better instincts, Nene did not fight or claw at the hands around her ankles or her mouth, even as she was suspended upside down in the darkness. He could have the decency to interrogate her upright at least. She would’ve told him that much, had her mouth been free.
“Well now…” came a deep drawl from the darkness.
A light switched on from somewhere above her, and she blinked at the sudden brightness. Tsuchigomori stood before her (unfortunately, still upside-down) looking much like she’d always known him, except the patch of white was missing from his hair. He seemed a bit more rested than he usually did. She couldn’t imagine how old he was, but if he was “young” in this time, youth did him good. His sharp teeth flashed in the light, and even though she knew he probably wouldn’t hurt her, she couldn’t suppress her shudder of fear at the sight.
“What should I do with you?”
Déjà vu. She’d heard that one before.
The blood was beginning to rush to her head. Her attempts to speak were muffled by one of the many hands that held her. Still gripping the list and the letter, she used her balled-up fists to push the skirts of her dress back into place. Tsuchigomori didn’t seem to mind, focusing instead on the glower she aimed at him. Having had enough fun at her expense, he finally released her mouth. His hands moved to grab her by the collar of her dress. She was still suspended above the ground, but at least she was upright.
“Thank you,” she spat, not grateful in the least. She probably should have tried for sweetness, but she’d been through quite an ordeal recently, and her patience was steadily being whittled away.
“You’re welcome,” his arm raised her higher up until they were at eye level. “Thank you for not screaming; I have neighbors. Now, how did you find this place, and what do you want with me?”
She took a deep breath. Right, time travel. This wasn't going to be an easy discussion, but she'd prepared for it. “This is going to sound… very strange. Or maybe not too strange, seeing as you deal with supernatural things all the time–” his eyes narrowed at this, and Nene decided it would be wise to move on quickly, “but if you read this,” she held out the crumpled letter to him, “it should make sense.”
He observed the envelope warily, then rolled his eyes and used one of his extra hands to take it from her. One finger ripped the edge of the envelope and tugged out the letter. His eyes scanned its contents quickly. She watched as his eyes widened at certain parts, perhaps in shock, perhaps in dismay. He quickly concealed his emotions after those moments. When he finished reading it, his eyes went back to the top of the letter and he read it again.
“Can I come down now?” she asked. Hanging in the air was less frightening now and more uncomfortable.
“No,” he said, not looking up from the letter.
She took advantage of the moment to look around the apartment. It was tidy, and more spacious than it appeared from the outside. They were standing–hanging, in her case–in the entrance-way. His shoes were lined up against the wall. A long hallway led to what seemed to be the kitchen. Once he’d read the letter two more times, he folded it up and looked at her again. “What is your name?”
Alright, she was ready for this. “Yashiro Nene,” she said confidently, “but you usually call me Yashiro-san. I call you Sensei.” He remained impassive, waiting for more. The silence got under her skin, and she itched to fill it. “I know this isn’t ideal. I wasn’t supposed to end up here, necessarily. I was shooting for July of 1969. I had one chance–have one chance, and I can’t mess this up. I’m in a bit of a predicament. I need your help.” Her eyes were burning again by the end of it, and she frowned down at the ground so he wouldn’t see.
He sighed, resigned. He appeared to grow taller all of a sudden, until her feet touched the ground and she realized he was letting her down. “It would seem so.”
She was stunned. That was it? That was the interrogation she and the Tsuchigomori from her time had prepared her for?
“That’s all you want to ask me?”
“Trust me, if I suspected you were anything other than honest, we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now. Not that your sob story would’ve done you much good.” He held up the folded letter in front of her nose. “This told me everything I needed to know. In addition,” he said, a self-satisfied grin stretching across his face. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Nene glanced at his teeth again, unsettled, but met his eyes as his words dawned on her. “How were you expecting me? We’re not supposed to meet for another fifty years.”
“Come with me.” He turned and walked down the hall like he knew she’d follow without complaint. He was right, though; she was hardly in any position to object. She slipped off her shoes, dazed by the turn of events, and followed.
The apartment was rather traditional, small and tidy. The floors were wood-paneled and the room was almost entirely devoid of decoration. Rather unsentimental. He probably felt more at home in his hidden library at school, anyway. When he’d given her the address, he’d told her he used to keep the apartment mostly for appearances. In the future, he chose to spend a majority of his free time in school.
A bookshelf stood against one of the walls, sparsely stocked with books. Odd for a librarian. One of the walls was a sliding partition door with a wooden frame, covered with rice paper. She assumed his room was behind it. Hidden away in the corner was an opening to a stairway that led up to a second floor.
Tsuchigomori walked over to the couch in the living room (not that there was much to distinguish it from the kitchen) and picked something up from a small table.
“This is very nice,” she said. “Clean, too.”
He appeared slightly offended. Was it not normal in this time to compliment someone’s home? “What exactly were you expecting?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Something dingy and cold like a cave. Full of bugs. Similar to your boundary.”
He made an unpleasant noise in the back of his throat, scowling down at her. “We really do know each other in the future, don’t we?”
“You develop a better sense of humor in the next half-century.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Here.” He handed her a white book, one she recognized immediately as her book, from the 4 O’clock Library. Her name was inscribed on its binding. She went to open the cover, her fingers dancing over the edge. His eyes followed her movements carefully. She pulled but found the cover stuck shut. Something like relief flickered in his eyes.
“It appeared a few days ago,” he said. “Out of nowhere, with no explanation as to how it got to the 4 O’clock Library. It shouldn’t exist yet, seeing as you are not a student at Kamome Academy. It’s stubborn and has refused to open up to me.”
Sure it was weird, but she’d experienced more unusual things recently than an obstinate book. “Has that ever happened before?”
“No.” The word was heavy with meaning, like the conundrum had been a burden on his mind. He still held himself guardedly, positioned slightly away from her. It was an odd feeling to be more familiar with someone than they were with you. There was an invisible partition between them, an entire relationship she’d have to rebuild from scratch. If she stayed, that is.
“That letter really told you everything?” she asked.
“I was very detailed in my letter. And persuasive, I might add. I suppose I needed to be pretty persuasive to convince myself to go along with this.” It was confusing to hear him refer to himself that way. It was an uncomfortable adjustment.
“So, you know why I’m here, and who I’m here for.”
“Yes. Yugi Amane,” the name, finally spoken aloud, sent a shiver down her spine. It felt real now. He felt real, alive once again. “I also explained in the letter that his book cannot give a proper account of his life. He’s somehow able to change his destiny.”
She nodded. “He was supposed to grow up and become a teacher. You’d have been coworkers, but something went wrong. He became a supernatural. That’s what Future-Tsuchigomori told me."
“Yes, so I read.”
A growing suspicion gnawed at her intuition. “What else did the letter tell you?”
“Not much.”
The letter was hanging haphazardly from his pocket. She put her hand out for it, trying to come off as confident. Confidence was half of lying. Not that she was very good at it. “May I have that back?”
“Absolutely not.” Those were the same words he’d said to her in her time, after sealing the envelope. Her curiosity would not be sated until she read that letter.
She pouted. It was worth a shot.
“It’s a miracle you even made it here,” he said.
“Yes, a miracle.” She looked around the sparse room for something to lay her attention on.
“Something I’m sure you’d be more than happy to explain to me in the morning.”
Nene made a noncommittal sound and shrugged. She was tired.
He pointed toward the stairs. “You can have the guest room tonight. We need to get you clothes first thing in the morning; you can’t go out dressed like that.” Again, with her clothes. The judgement. The Sixties really were going to get on her last nerve, weren’t they? “You really brought nothing with you?” he asked.
“I was hoping to land during the summer and you… future-you told me it could interfere with the time travel. The less I physically carried with me, the better. I wasn’t intending on arriving on December 20, 1968.”
He sighed. “Yes, I thought that might be the case. Also, it’s December 26. We’ve been out of school on break this week.”
Oh. That would explain why the date on the board hadn’t been updated.
“What kind of shoddy plan did I send you with from the future?”
“I was supposed to land sometime in July. Hopefully July 22, 1969. You have a discussion with Hana– Amane, and he gives you a moon rock. That’s the date you realized, in retrospect, was the beginning of the end.”
He crossed his arms–the upper two–and his brow furrowed in thought. “I didn’t join you on this journey to the past. The letter doesn’t explain why that’s the case.”
“You couldn’t. I was the only one who could reach this time.” She hoped he wouldn’t push the matter. Please leave it at that, her mind begged.
He eyed her again, but let it pass. “And when you got here, what then?”
“I was supposed to find him in the school and convince him not to do… something. A mistake that changes the course of his existence and ends up destroying him.”
“How?”
“It’s hard to explain. He was a spirit in my time, School Mystery Number Seven, but a few months ago he–”
“No, I mean how were you going to convince him?”
Oh, that. She opened her mouth to speak, but drew a blank. She stood there gaping for a moment. “I don’t really know,” she said, her voice small. “Just tell him, I guess, that he… was in danger. He needed to ask for help. That he wasn’t alone.”
“That’s hardly a plan. It’s more of a suicide mission. Time travel is nasty business; there’s no comprehensible rhyme or reason to its current. You could have ended up anywhere. I presume you have no plan for getting back to your time, either.”
She shook her head.
The back of her neck tingled and she pressed a cool palm over the skin of her nape. Something in the back of her mind wriggled, like a snake, roused from its sleep. Not now.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
She shook her head vehemently. She couldn’t have eaten if she wanted to.
“Sensei, what about the first time I met Hanako-kun? I mean, Amane. In the classroom when he was crying. Why can’t I just go through the same door?”
“There are an infinite number of doors to endless places across time and space. You were lucky that time. Exceedingly lucky. Impossibly lucky. It will not happen again.”
“Then how do I find him? How do I fix this?” She was falling apart again. She braced a hand to her chest and tried not to hyperventilate. His eyes softened as he watched her suffer. That’s all she did nowadays. Suffer.
“You don’t.”
She looked out the window into the night. It wasn't as bright as it would be in her time. Less electricity. More stars, though. She hugged her knees to her chest and leaned her head back against the wall. The clothes Tsuchigomori had given her to sleep in had no smell at all, like they’d never been worn. There was nothing familiar about this room, this sky, these scents. She was adrift in time.
The to-do list rested on the ground by her side. She picked it up and read it again, for the hundredth time.
Step 4: Find Hanako-kun Yugi Amane
He was alive in this time. Somewhere out there beneath the stars.
This time, he was going to stay that way.
—
Yashiro.
No.
Yashiro. I don’t think I’ll last much longer now.
He couldn’t go like this. What about everything he’d said? How he’d wanted to try living with her? He was fading. She reached for his face but her fingers slipped right through–
I’m sorry. For everything.
No, she was sorry.
He was gone and she was falling, falling down into a well. The walls were slick and she couldn’t climb back up. Her nails broke off at the quick as she clawed away at the stones. The moon covered the sun.
In that dark, cold place where she’d found him... if only he knew what she’d done there in that room.
Tsuchigomori’s eyes, wide and stricken with horror. His form stumbling back from her.
Yashiro-san, what have you done?
If only he knew, he’d never forgive her.
The nightmares weren’t anything special. She’d been having the same ones for months. Sometimes she was watching Hanako-kun die all over again. Others were more quiet and insidious. Forced to watch herself make the same dreaded mistakes over and over from behind a pane of glass. In those dreams, she banged on the glass and screamed until her voice was raw, but the dream version of herself she watched never heard a word. No matter how many times she had the nightmares, she never grew numb to them. They left a scorched wound in her chest where her heart should be.
She stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling from her futon on the floor. It took a minute for her sleepy brain to put all the pieces together, but when finally they did, there was a flicker in her chest. Hope. It had been a while since she’d felt that.
Her stomach protested. It had been almost an entire day since she’d eaten. Decades, if she was feeling technical. With the adrenaline of her journey burned off, she was left starving. She got up and walked down the stairs on tip-toe, avoiding making too much noise.
Tsuchigomori was already up and reading the newspaper at the kitchen table. There were only two chairs, one at each end of the table, but only the vacant seat had food in front of it. He didn’t look up as she approached and pulled out the chair.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Morning,” he replied, still invested in the paper.
There didn’t appear to be other dishes sitting around. She wondered, not for the first time, whether he ate human food at all. Maybe he stuck to bugs. That was Kou’s theory anyway.
The thought of Kou sent a ripple of loneliness through her, and she focused instead on the warm food before her. Her mouth watered and her stomach growled again.
It was a good-looking breakfast; a small bowl of rice, what appeared to be some grilled fish, and some miso soup. She’d never taken him for someone who could cook, but there the evidence sat. She poured some soy sauce over her rice. “Thank you for the meal.” She dug in, her hunger completely overshadowing any shame she might’ve felt at scarfing down every bite before her. He didn’t look up from his paper once.
The moment she’d finished, the paper dropped and she met his even stare.
“Are you going to explain it or are we going to pretend it isn’t there?”
The food in her stomach suddenly felt less satiating and more like a ball of lead. She did not flinch. She did not blush. She remained calm. Unfortunately, he could see right through her. “If you think I can’t sense what you’re hiding, you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
“I could sense it through the front door last night. I knew it immediately.” She’d wondered why he’d been so aggressive upon their first encounter. She could’ve been anyone, a student perhaps, but he’d been wary from the moment he’d answered the door. “I may not know why,” he continued, “but I know what I feel.”
“It’s not important,” she said. He shot her a look that almost broke her composure. “It shouldn’t cause any trouble,” she amended. “It’s from another time.”
“That’s not how these things work.”
“I have one goal now, and I’ll do whatever it takes to save him.”
“At the risk of losing your own life?”
She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “At the promise of it.”
“You are a fool,” he said, like he was confirming it for himself. He stood and the matter was dropped for the time being. “Get dressed. We have an early appointment at the tailors to fit you for your school uniform.”
A breeze could have knocked her over. “My uniform?”
“Yes. I can give you the details on the way. We can’t be late.”
They walked against the wind, heads down, hands shoved into pockets. He’d been nice enough to lend her a jacket. It was warm and too big for her, but it helped to cover how incongruous her outfit was for the time. The pavement passed before her eyes and she watched her feet as they strode down the sidewalk.
“Our story needs to be consistent. You’re my niece from the south. Your parents sent you here for a better education, closer to the city.” He looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“You could pass for thirteen maybe. Probably fourteen. I can get you into the second-year junior high class. Yugi is in the first-year junior high class, but it will have to do.”
Enrolled in school? Back in junior high? She chewed on her chapped lips nervously. “I don’t know about this.”
“Do you want to save him or not? Chances are, you’re stuck here for a while. I know you think your ‘plan’ fell apart, but the universe had more sense than you did. Use this time. Develop a relationship with him.” He looked at her again but she was busy pretending to be interested in her shoes. “He’s guarded and secretive; if you want to change his mind, you’ll have to make a connection with him to get him to trust you.”
“No.”
Her feet rooted to the spot. He stopped walking and looked back at her.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.” It was impossible to explain. The relationship she’d had with Hanako-kun was ultimately what destroyed him.
The plan was to show up right before things got bad, help him figure out a way to fix his life that didn’t involve killing his brother, and find a way home. He’d live. His family would live. To-do list complete. She wasn’t supposed to get close to him again; he only needed to survive.
There was no way to know for sure how it would impact the future, but she’d imagined it. When she got back to her time he wouldn’t be there as a ghost. He’d be an old man in his sixties, with a family and a whole life of his own. She’d accepted that much.
Her heart couldn’t take losing him again.
“Yashiro-san, it’s mission over mind now. You came here for a reason. My job, as instructed to me by my future-self, is to aid you in saving his life. Though I cannot possibly imagine why I’ve chosen to saddle myself with this burden.” That last part was more for himself than her. He faced her like she was a soldier. Sometimes she felt like one, in some great battle against space and destiny.
“Walk,” he instructed. She walked.
They continued down the sidewalk for a few minutes. The sign for the tailor’s shop loomed into view, old and faded by time and the elements. The closed sign was on the door but he knocked anyway. Three quick knocks, one long one. “I’m cashing in a favor. Don’t be difficult.”
“Alright.” I’m not difficult, was what she wanted to say, but that was almost too contrarian, even for her.
The door to the shop unlocked with a click and swung open. They entered together.