𝐌𝐄𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍. ʜᴀɴᴀꜱʜɪʀᴏ

1 0 : 鈴の音

The Sound Of The Bell

—

It wasn't too hard when getting close to Kou and Teru; they were kind and really gentle, after all. A certain amount of time has passed after everything they have first talked about and all they're doing now was peacefully accompanying each other.

"Ah, I lost again," Nene scrunches up her nose, deafeated, while playing rock-paper-scissors with Kou. It was childish, but they didn't really have anything to do anyway. "Geez, how can you be so good in this?"

"I'm not really that good. It's just a matter of picking before showing, after all," he laughs at her. "It's just coincidence that you always pick the weaker ones."

"I can't believe you're such a loser, Nene," Hanako snickers from beside her. "That's just a pretty easy game, you know?"

She scowls at him, "Oh, shut up. All you do is talk, you can't really win, can you?"

"Oh, says the one who always loses."

Kou stops their bickering even before it could get worse, "Geez, you two always do this. You should stop doing this daily, you know? Right, Teru-nii?" He says as he glances at his brother, expecting for him to smile and agree. But he noticed that he wasn't even listening to him as he was only looking outside.

"Are you okay?" He asks as he tilts his head to the side, worried. "Is something bothering you?"

"N-No, well," Teru snaps from his gaze as he looks at his younger brother. He smiles at him, although it didn't really reached his eyes. "It's just that I was wondering how Tiara is now. Officials must've sent a word back home by now about how we are. I was just worried about how she'll react."

"She'll probably cry," Kou chuckles, although it sounded forced and sad. "But she's strong, you know?"

Teru nods eagerly. All of them felt silent and he breaks it by talking again, "I was just thinking that we can't really stay here forever, Kou."

The younger blond looks down and thinks about his words. He was partly right, though; they can't stay there forever. Unlike Hanako, they feel like they have to move on, somehow. Sure, it was really fun just sitting around and gazing outside with the best scenery they've ever seen — but it just felt different because it wasn't normal.

They were in the afterlife, after all.

"I know that." He says. There wasn't any ounce of lie in his words when he said that — just a bit hesitant, though. "I know that all too well."

Hanako sensed the hesitation in his voice and spoke up, hitting the bullseye, "You're scared, aren't you?"

Teru and Nene looked at him incredulously. Their eyes were questioning him: "But what is he scared of?"

Kou looks up at Hanako and smiled bitterly, "Yeah. That's right. It's kind of weird when I'm a soldier, right? Because soldiers are supposed to be brave and used to pain."

But I am human.

"Why are you scared?" Teru asks. "What exactly are you scared of, Kou?"

He doesn't look at him as he replies, in a small voice, "I'm scared because it feels like if I ever step off this train, everything will go different and then, in just a blink of an eye," he looks at him with eyes that screamed uncertainty in them. "I will forget every single thing that has happened to me in this life."

"But don't you want to forget about the war?" Teru puts a hand on his shoulder to try and calm him down. "It was scary and it was the worst, right?"

It was. But it honestly held a special place in his heart because of his love for peace and unity — it was a proof that he was a proud person who fought for his country. And that can never be changed, no matter how much time may pass.

But it's not because of that.

"I'm scared that I may never remember you or even Tiara in my next life," he says. "I know that my reason is like that of cowardice but I—"

And then, he stops, as if he was being interrupted by something again.

"W-What's wrong?" Nene asks, a bit worried about him. "Are you alright?"

Kou shakes his head and looks at Teru, as if asking him something nonverbally. He answers with a slow nod, completely knowing what his eyes said, even without words.

Nene glanced at Hanako with a puzzled look, "What's wrong? I can't understand what's happening."

Instead of replying to her, he shushes her out. He glances back at her, "You'll know."

Kou lunges a bit forward towards them, a frown on his face, "Don't your ears hurt?"

The cream-haired tilts her head to the side slowly, a peculiar look on her face. She tugs onto Hanako's sleeve, "Why would our ears hurt?" When he doesn't answer her, she looks at him with furrowed eyebrows, only to see his amber eyes go wide as if he understands the whole situation.

"You can't hear it?" Teru asks. "It's so loud, I wonder why you can't hear it?"

"No, I cant hear anything!" She stares at them in horror as she panicked, her magenta eyes going wide, as big as saucers. "W-What exactly can you hear? Don't tell me I'm going deaf?!"

"It's a sound of a bell. It's really loud, like that of a bell tower's when it's noon and you can hear it from all around the town," Kou tries to describe it to her as he motions with his hands. "It's been ringing ever since I stopped talking."

"I can still hear it loud and clear, though." Teru says lightly as he frowns. "It's impossible that you can't hear it. Right, Hanako?"

The dark-haired boy's eyes were still wide as he looks at the both of them. No one understood why he was like that until those words fell right from his mouth.

"You're alive?"