★ | I, Rhys Kakyoin | Jotakak

33 ★ Till there was you

Before I can eagerly head up the stairs back to the living world to tell Jo everything and to get myself dry back home, Kume-san grasps my arm with her hand, stopping me in my tracks, turning me around to face her as she nearly makes me lose my balance. "You're excited to tell him everything, are you not?"

Quietly, I nod without a verbal reply. She offers me one more soft smile. "Anybody can tell how much he cares about you. Many of the times he talks to his family and friends it is about you."

I grin. "I know."

"What is he like?"

"Well..." I begin, slowly starting to zone out. It's such an easy question anyway. "I like... his smile. I like his eyes. I like his handwriting. I like his accent. I like the sound of his laugh, probably because it's really rarely that he really laughs. I like the way he looks when he sleeps." I already can picture him so clearly in my mind and yet it feels as if what I'm seeing doesn't seem to be able to capture just how perfect he is. "I love the way he makes me feel that everything's possible. And I love how he makes me feel safe, that everything's going to be okay when he's with me. I love that he understands and trusts me in no way that anyone else can."

"How lovely. And before you go, Mr Kakyoin, I want to remind you to always treat him the way he treats you... and the way you want him to treat you. Never cease to see him beyond just an endearing and flawless boy and look at him for who he truly is."

"That's a silly thing to remind me about," I say before hurriedly going up to see my dear Jo again.

Jo stands up with two hardbound books in his hands as soon as he sees me step into the aisle he is in, having been sitting on the floor by the bookshelf reading. "What's 'appened?"

"You won't believe it, Jojo. You seriously won't believe it."

"Tell me everythin'. From start to finish," he breathes. "But before that, I need to pay for these."

"All right. Hurry up and make sure none of the change is from Hereafter," I say.

Having just arrived at the rows of houses of the neighbourhood closing in on us thanks to Jo's fleeting yet effective time freeze, just a stone's throw away from my house, he holds me by the arm as I walk with my crutches. Wisps of my red hair stick to my face, tiny droplets dripping onto my back from time to time.

"Blimey. What did y' do down there?" Jo asks me in surprise, at the same time glancing around us for anyone who might catch me somehow soaked to the skin despite it having not rained for days.

"It's complicated," I say, and I begin to explain everything that happened and everything that I saw, from the circular atrium, the chakai I had with Kume-san, and what I saw in the Hiraeth; the icicle that nearly killed Arata and seeing Jo pull the trigger on himself in a jail cell... the part that I feel hesitant to tell him about the most... to what she said about me and how I somehow managed to defy fate and live on despite me not being supposed to. After I tell him everything, I look down at him to see his reaction, and it's what I expected. On his face is a blank expression, staring into space as though I just told him the most unbelievable bullshit ever, and maybe I nearly did, because I frankly can't bring myself to fully believe it either.

"Bloody 'ell," Jo mutters. "That's... that's maddenin'. And... I was right... it was a test, then."

"Yeah," I smile, "she called you smart for having that idea."

He utters what's sort of a mix of a laugh and a scoff, still in profound disbelief. "You're survivin' this curse, Rhys." Now he thrusts his other hand into his jacket pocket, having been clearly touched by a tinge of gloom. "I guess everybody's future is already planned the moment they begin existin'. It's all decided, everythin' that's 'appened and everything that's goin' to 'appen. That feels... rather disappointin'. Y' grow up to believe that you make yer own future with yer choices, y' fulfil a purpose that y' believe you've created for yourself, only to find out that you, alongside everybody else, only did what y' were expected to do from the start and it's not yer own mind or creativity guidin' you or anythin'. Just y' subconsciously followin' what... whatever fate wants you to do.