Chapter Text
Sahka, Russia
13/8/23
16:42
Kyoko's heavy combat boots tapped against the wet pavement of the sidewalk. She walked through the outer edges of the city in the suburbs. Heavy store bags weighed down her fingers, and the ends of her long jacket brushed against the back of her calves.
Her hands were killing her that day. She should've driven instead of walked. Her hands were far too tender to carry bags all the way home. She shifted the handles of the paper bags from her fingers to her forearm to give herself a break from the pain. She sighed with the eased tension and continued her walk through her neighborhood while her left arm adorned the bags and pressed closely to her midsection.
The air was moist from having rained an hour ago. It was slightly foggy. However, the visibility rate was much higher than it was in winter, but that was expected from the city's variation in temperature. It was 50 degrees in late August but could plummet to -50 in winter.
She almost wished she got to go home in winter rather than summer. She missed the extremity of her home's cold weather. The way the cold would seep so deep into her bones and settle there like an embrace; how she could lose feeling in her hands if she took her gloves off for too long. And how ice would form on her eyelashes when she took trips to the store like this.
Pine cones were littered across the sidewalk. They crunched and split in half underneath her boots. Their source was the pine trees that stood tall above her. She counted the trees to the right of the sidewalk, opposite the empty road. One, then two, then three, then four, until an opening in the row emerged. She turned right, going off the pavement, onto the dying grass, and into the gap.
The back of her grandfather's home, which had only been her home for seven years, was a few yards away. She approached the backyard as a shortcut. It was easier than winding around the street and other houses just to get to the front door.
The firm grass crunched underneath the heavy soles of her boots as she crossed her backyard. Her grandfather's home was made of dark wood. Like all buildings in the Russian Far East, it had thick cement stilts that held it off the ground because the home's heating would melt the permafrost without the gap. The home was two stories and had a small tool shed off to the side.
"We don't do half-bad with my career," her grandfather's voice echoed through her head from when they had dinner together after she moved in with him. "They don't have many guys doing what I do here. And what they do have, I'm the most experienced of them."
Kyoko walked around the side of the house, knowing that her grandfather never kept the backdoor unlocked. He would blow a gasket if she unlocked the backdoor for herself.
Using her arm that wasn't occupied by bags, she reached her hand into one of her jacket pockets for her house key as she climbed the many steps to her front door.
She fumbled while trying to wrap her fingers around the small, thin key. The joints of her fingers resisted and stung as she moved them. She winced in pain and decided to use her pointer finger to edge the key into the palm of her hand to pull it out.
Once she held it out in front of her, Kyoko used her other hand to hold up the key as she pushed it into the small slot in the front door. She put either side of her palms on each side of the key, as if she was paused while clapping, and turned the key sideways, clicking the door unlocked.
Once she was free to get inside, she used the same motion to pull the key out and back into one of her palms.
Kyoko silently stepped inside. She wiped her wet boots on the mat, locked the door, kicked off her shoes, placed them neatly to the side, next to her grandfather's, hung her jacket, and placed her house key on the dish next to the door.
Her grandfather's home was much warmer than outside, and the smell of brewing coffee wafted through the house. The smell seeped so deep into the architecture that the wood was engraved with it.
The floorboards creaked with each step Kyoko took to the kitchen. She never felt the need to announce her presence to her grandfather because the house did it for her.
A few framed pictures hung on the side of the staircase to her right. There were only a few scattered artworks that her grandfather had found interesting, never any framed photos of family.
Underneath the staircase was a door that led to her grandfather's office. It hung open, indicating the office was vacant. Across from the door was an opening that led to the kitchen. Straight ahead, at the end of the hallway, led to the den.
Her grandfather, she knew, was home. He usually wasn't, though. Either working or traveling elsewhere for work, leaving her to herself for days, sometimes weeks. The lower rates of police force in Yakutsk came from the lower crime rates.
"Most of the time what they have me do is look into the bodies that froze to death to make sure it was just an accident and not caused by another party. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it was an accident," her grandfather told her once.
As a result, her grandfather would travel to cases rather than wait for them to come to him. With his long line of experience and hefty accomplishments in his work, he was often notified by surrounding cities and towns when more complex cases arose that needed his assistance.
As Kyoko walked down the hallway, she heard her grandfather's pedantic voice from the kitchen. She assumed he was on the kitchen phone, but that was confirmed false when she heard hums of agreement from others in the room. She crept closer in curiosity. Rarely did her grandfather have company over.
She walked underneath the small framed artwork on the staircase until she stood at the kitchen doorway. The balls of her feet placed on the hallway floorboards, and her toes on the cool kitchen tile.
Her grandfather turned his head to look at her from where he sat at the round kitchen table across the room, along with three other faces that sat with him. A younger man, a woman, and a middle-aged man. Kyoko accidentally tensed and bit the inside of her bottom lip when the faces sparked recognition.
"You're finally home, I see," her grandfather acknowledged.
Kyoko looked down at her arm with the bags. She lifted it for him to notice. "I picked up bread from the grocery like you asked."
Her feet swiftly moved her from the doorway to the kitchen counter, seeking distraction. She quickly busied herself with setting the bags down on the table. As she stepped fully into the room, the kitchen tiles radiated heat through her socks. It came from the warm water going through the pipes beneath them.
She unloaded the bag's contents into their correct spaces in the kitchen. She opened the fridge door, squatted to be level with it due to the freezer being on top, and started placing Greek yogurt cups onto the shelves.
From behind the fridge door, her grandfather spoke. "I decided to invite some guests over. You remember Vlad, Azar, and Karp, correct? They're old friends."
She did. She knew that they were the faces sitting at the table. And that she hadn't seen them in years. Not since they had recovered.
"You're wicked tall now," the woman commented. "A full-grown adult."
Kyoko kept her eyes trained on the fridge. "Same height as you, I'm sure."
"Last time I saw you, you were about here."
Kyoko didn't look but assumed the woman estimated Kyoko's previous height between the palm of her hand and the floor. From the laughter, Kyoko guessed the woman held her hand drastically lower to the floor. Even her solemn grandfather murmured a chuckle.
The middle-aged man slapped his hand against the table three times. "I remember!" he exclaimed in a gravelly low voice.
Kyoko kept her head low and swiftly shifted to placing apples into the fruit bowl, sharply keeping her eyes on her task and away from the table. Her hands moved robotically, ignoring the stinging pain from her joints, as she transferred apples from bag to bowl.
"Once you're done, why don't you sit down and join us?" her grandfather asked.
Kyoko shook her head. "I should go up to my room and keep packing. I don't want to forget something here when I go back to school," she dismissed.
"You have plenty of time left in the day to do that. You can spare some of your time, can't you?"
Her grandfather had a straight and leveled voice for an older man. He had a way of controlling his tone that she had yet to completely master. He knew how to intimidate. He talked to criminals often, after all. And his voice emitted a stricter tone. One that let Kyoko know that the invite to join them was never a question.
Kyoko paused her task of organizing the fruit bowl. She placed the palms of her hands against the counter. She quietly sighed and stood still for a moment, scouring her mind for more excuses. There were not many. She did not have much to do in the final month of summer before she went back to Hope's Peak.
"Your grandpa told us you're going to Hope's Peak now," the middle-aged man with the gruff voice muttered. "Congrats, kid."
Kyoko didn't respond. She considered her options and accepted compliance. She glanced over at the table again. Her grandfather's piercing eyes stared at her expectantly through his glasses. Get over here, his stare demanded. You're being rude. Behave.
The other three stared at her expectantly as well. They were much more welcoming than her grandfather, but her gut tightened when she looked at them. She remembered them. But not like this. Not how they looked now.
Kyoko swallowed a lump in her throat, lowered her head, and approached the kitchen table. Her grandfather had pulled out the nice spare chairs for the guests. He kept the nicer chairs away in case they ever had company. They were old but plush and not used much.
Kyoko sat in the rickety wooden chair that was always assigned to her at the kitchen table.
"It's nice to see you again," the younger man said. He sat across the table from her and gave her a nod. She looked up at him. His face was easier to view than the others. It was only older than the last time she saw him.
Karp was just as unintimidating as she remembered him being. He had a youthful, agreeable face. His jaw was stronger and sharper than the last time she saw him. His cheeks were a little narrower, and he looked capable of at least growing stubble, unlike when she last saw him.
But he was still skinny and had poorly defined muscles. He was as lanky as a pencil and had the body of a scholar, not a fighter.
"You too." She politely nodded at him.
Instead of keeping his hair only an inch or two past his scalp like when he was younger, Karp grew his silver hair out. He haphazardly combed it back away from his face, not using a gel, which made it stick out and disobey. He constantly fidgeted and brushed spare strands away from his face.
Her grandfather put a hand on her shoulder. "She's eighteen now. She'll be nineteen in the fall," he told them.
"You drinking beer yet?" Vlad asked, who sat next to Karp and was twice his age. He was a large traditional Russian man. He had a bald head and thick, scraggly, unkempt dark eyebrows. He had tattoos on his chest, barely visible through the low line of his shirt collar. And he was a balanced mix of fat and muscle. His biceps were large and defined, and he was tall.
Her grandfather sent him a glare, and Vlad raised his arms in surrender. "Was just wonderin'." He put his hands back down on the table, making the surface shake. His small, beady eyes went back to Kyoko. He evaluated her before saying, "I see you cover 'em up."
Kyoko looked at him, not registering.
"Your battle scars." He nodded to Kyoko's hands, which were placed neatly on the table. Her studded gloves kept her hands hidden. She lowered them from their sight and into her lap.
She and Vlad were opposite to one another. As he mentioned, she covered her scarring while Vlad wore a loose-fitted white tank top that showed the skin of his large, muscular arms. His biceps and forearms were overtaken in large splotches and lines of folded and scarred skin from where fire had scathed them. Some of the scarring traveled up his neck and onto the sides of his face.
"I, um…" Kyoko struggled to explain in a way that would be non-offensive. She was aware she had suffered much less than others at the table.
"Don't like getting stares?" the woman finished for her.
Kyoko clenched her jaw. She meekly looked up at Azar.
The woman sat to Kyoko's right. The back of her chair faced the wall, and she sat underneath the kitchen window. The censored sunlight covered by the clouds peeked through the window and made her dark glossy hair shine.
Her black hair fell down her shoulder to the right, but the left was partially bald, overtaken by scarring, and had small tufts of hair that managed to grow back. What remained of the cartilage of her ear was melted into the side of her head. The eyelid of her left eye folded over itself and kept the eye narrow. Kyoko was sure she was blind in that eye. And she was unable to close her lips fully. The left side of her face had a small gap where part of her upper lip was missing, flesh burned off, and now a few of her top row of teeth and gums were permanently on display through the small hole.
She kept her left arm closely tucked to her chest. Her sleeve covered most of her arm, but her exposed wrist was thin and overtaken with discoloration from burns. Her hand was boney and didn’t look capable of much movement.
"I get it," she said with a shrug. "People are judgemental."
"Just kick their asses," Vlad declared.
"Watch your language," her grandfather told him.
Vlad's head went back as he let out an uproarious laugh. "I forget how modest you are, Fuhito," he chuckled while shaking his finger at him.
"Come on. It's his house, man," Karp told him, but he was smiling.
Vlad leaned closer to Fuhito. "You're prolly raising that kid too strict," he told him in his low, gravelly voice, and he pointed a large finger at Kyoko. "Telling her that bible stuff 'n all that, aren't ya?"
Vlad's fingers and hands were calloused heavily. He was a man of physical labor. Her grandfather—who was very capable due to his determination—still fell short sometimes on heavy lifting with his older age and smaller frame, only 5'8. Vlad was a helping hand for larger household necessities and projects, like moving the couch with Kyoko or bringing bags of heavy soil around back.
Vlad was an old friend of Fuhito's. Years ago, they crossed paths in town and recognized each other in the brief instances their lines of work as a firefighter and detective overcrossed. Vlad wasn't the type of man her loner of a grandfather would seem to get along with, but he was someone to talk to every once in a while. They got along; they had beers and chatted, and they both rooted for the same sports teams—Vlad much more passionately than Fuhito.
After Kyoko moved in, she became used to seeing the wall of a man show up to help with a labor project in the house with Fuhito or watch the game with him. Back when her grandfather still could drink heavier, the two of them went to the bar together to catch up. When Kyoko was a younger girl, Fuhito had Vlad educate her on the ins and outs of fire safety.
In the confusion that swarmed and raged through her life when she first moved to a whole new continent to live with her grandfather, Vlad was one of the few familiar faces in town. He was someone she greeted when she ran into him in stores. He was someone to ask for directions when she got turned around in the city. And he was someone whose phone she could borrow when she wandered too far that her grandfather needed to pick her up in his truck.
However, Kyoko had not seen Vlad in five years. Her grandfather had. But she had continued with her life in self-isolation. And eventually, she went to Hope's Peak Academy. He looked about the same as before. The aging lines on his face were deeper and more defined. And the scarring on his arms was unfamiliar and unseen by Kyoko until now. But he was about the same.
Fuhito nodded indifferently and unfazed at his old friend. "I'm raising her modestly." He turned to look at her. And Kyoko nodded in agreement for him.
She sent him a micro-expression that she knew he wouldn't miss. What's happening? she questioned. Why are they here? Her grandfather's worn lips spread into a thin line underneath his graying beard.
"I wanted to invite some old friends over while you were here. It would be good to get you reacquainted with your past," he told her.
Not when it was a past she did not ask to revisit, Kyoko thought. Her eyes flickered around the table. Nobody said anything. Kyoko's mind state seemed to be known by the table.
But to break the silence, she said, "I see."
Despite her attempt at disguise, Azar seemed to notice and understand.
"It's weird to be back here," she addressed the whole table but looked at Kyoko. "I went back home to recover after it happened and hadn't been back since." Azar had Iranian descent, having a tint of light brown in her skin, but grew up in Australia before coming to Russia. "I didn't think I could until now. It's tough. Revisiting the past."
Her voice had an airy undertone. The hole in the side of her face gave her a minor lisp from being unable to connect her lips fully to enunciate the letters B and P. And when she inhaled and exhaled through her mouth as she spoke, air audibly and softly whistled past the hole.
"I went away for a bit, too," Karp commented. He had his hand wrapped around a glass of water set out for him on the table. He had no scarring relating to fire on his body, but he was there. And he was affected in his own way. "Just to a different city. I had to clear my mind. Then I decided to just move, leave this place behind, you know. Start anew."
Kyoko remembered when Fuhito told her Karp left. She was still in the hospital then. She wasn't sad about him leaving, but it added to her already existing distraught mind that, once again, every simple comfort that made up basic life was crumbling away at the foundations. And she had no say in the matter. She could only watch as what she hoped would be a quiet life molded into the byproduct of the town's tragedy.
While working on the aftermath of cases, Karp was one of the many faces Fuhito would see around the unit office. Their fields of work didn't cross often enough for them to collaborate, but they ran into each other quite a bit when Karp was fresh meat in the workforce.
The coffee machine was by the front, and because of that, Fuhito would often see Karp rush in nearly late in the morning. He would point out to Karp the toothpaste stains on his shirt, or his untied shoelaces, or crumbs and smudges from breakfast on the corner of his lips so Karp wouldn't make a fool of himself.
As distant as Fuhito was, he still remembered what being a young man was like. When he could tell Karp needed it, he gave him advice for staying in their harsher lines of work. And he also taught him the basic things. Once, he taught Karp how to tie a tie for a meeting.
Karp was one of the many faces her grandfather had gotten to know well. And Kyoko had seen him, too. When her grandfather brought her into the office, if Karp was there, he would slip her a piece of candy in his pocket. She saw him as a pool noodle of a boy despite him being older than him.
But now he was older. And so was Kyoko, and Vlad, and Azar. And they were different beyond their age. They were all there at the scene when it all happened. Kyoko's hands, Vlad's arms, Azar's face, Karp's youth. All of it was changed.
A burning swell pushed at the back of Kyoko's throat. Her head cascaded waves of thoughts, memories, pictures. Too many images and recollections of that night that she had swept away and put neatly inside boxes and under shelves that she wouldn't have to see. In her head, she saw what they each looked like before.
The boy, now man, that sat across from her, Karp Elin, five years ago, was the newest member of the Bomb Squad. He was twenty-three and had youthful optimism. He wanted to help people in the geeky way he knew how. And that was why he did what he did.
While he had some experience on the field, Karp had never responded to a call of such large proportions before that night in December. The childish young spark in his eye had dulled since he had lost friends, boys his age in the police force, to that fire. And what he had heard happened to his older semi-co-worker's granddaughter.
Kyoko's memory was so faded when she tried to recall that entire week after the fire, but she remembered Karp's face appearing in a snapshot from her mind in the hospital. He never knew her well, but he stood in the doorway of her hospital room with eye bags, dull eyes, messy hair, and so much grief. Kyoko was half-positive that he was the one who left the blue elephant stuffed animal by her bedside.
Vlad Lapin was a 37-year-old firefighter, not yet scarred or retired in 2018. He was a first responder. Kyoko briefly recalled the rush of firefighters in hefty yellow suits streaming by her into the building like a small-sized stampede because they knew people were still in there. And he was one of them in those yellow suits.
He rushed inside that building without knowing if anyone was still alive or not. He was one of the stories Kyoko read over and over in the hospital as news reports filed in. He stood on the second story, scanning the perimeter, clearing rooms for any signs of life as the blazing fire raged around him, crumbling the walls and infrastructure. Without expecting it, the fire made an electrical wire explode inside a wall. The miniature explosion went straight toward him. He used his arms to shield his head and body.
And Azar Khari was what Kyoko wanted to be when she was younger. She was a detective. She was 34 years old and conducting an investigation on a tip before anything went wrong. She was on the highest story when the explosion went off in the basement, killing everyone down there instantly, and setting the building ablaze. She got trapped when the fire spread to the stairwell faster than she could get out.
And Kyoko saw herself five years ago. Newly fourteen years old. Quiet but hopeful, determined, and optimistic. And screaming and crying and kicking as she was dragged away from the burning debris. Her hands, scolding. Smoke clouds engulfed the night sky with an ugly dark gray in the cruelest way possible. No solace could be taken from the stars by anyone. Instead, the anguish of that night embodied itself into those heavy smoke clouds, a dome of grief over everyone's heads.
The fire roaring and raging so loud between the screeching sirens and screaming and crying and death. Glass, piping, and wires exploding. Strings of skin hanging like melted wax off the bloodied flesh of Kyoko’s hands. And her friend's body, Yui, still inside, being swallowed by those flames.
Kyoko's nose and cheeks tingled as she sat at that table with her grandfather and those three recollections of the past. She crammed those memories down as far back as she could. She forced herself into an indifferent dullness to make her feel nothing. She wanted a catharsis to wipe away the smudges and stains of grief before it metastasized again.
She stabled herself and grabbed a tether back into the present. She focused on the weight of the chair beneath her, the way the legs creaked when she moved. She focused on the dull gray-white drywall. On the smell of brewed coffee. The heat emitting from the floor beneath her feet. Her hands in her lap. She was here, she was present, she was no longer there. It was no longer December of 2018.
"I retired back a bit ago," Vlad said, lost in thought. "But when the doctor cleared me to go back to the job, I couldn't go into those buildings no more. I stood outside with the hoses. It was embarrassing. You still doing what you're doing?" he asked Karp.
He nodded. "Never wanted to stop. But it certainly changed things. But you know..." he trailed off. He brushed another few strands of hair out of his face as he stole a quick glance at Kyoko. With a sharp inhale, he changed the subject. "So you're going to Hope's Peak now?" he asked her. "How's that been going?"
"Yeah, heard you're a detective now," Vlad added. "You any good?"
Kyoko nodded. "It's been going fine. I'm well accustomed there. And I've adjusted well to the requirements," Kyoko gave a brief layout of an answer. She viewed the conversation as a formal presentation when the topic switched to her, something she had to manage, perform, and present. That allowed her to be emotionally checked out.
"Have you done any cases?"
Kyoko's attention was brought to the other side of the table where Azar sat. She stared at her in curiosity with one gold eye and one faded eye.
Kyoko nodded. "I've done apprentice work. I have since I was fifteen, actually."
Fuhito smiled with pride while the other two men gaped.
"Fifteen?" Karp repeated, bewildered.
Kyoko shrugged. Internally, small harmless hooks pulled at the corners of her lips, prying for her to smile, but she held them at bay. She bore an indifferent mask. "I did some minor shadowing then. Now, my apprenticeship involves more participation and contribution on my part. I've done a lot lately, thanks to Hope's Peak's curriculum and guidelines. The school gives me a lot of opportunities."
Fuhito crossed his arms, slightly miffed at the small praise for the school. The two had overcome their differences about her running away to attend it many months ago, but he had never changed his mind on his opinion of it. However, for both of their sakes, he didn't comment.
Vlad huffed in amusement while Karp leaned back and crossed his arms, impressed.
"She's done quite well," Fuhito added. "She's a natural. She's exceeded a multitude of expectations."
Vlad tapped Fuhito's shoulder and addressed Kyoko, "Your pops told us he's taught you all he's known. Good for you, kid. You're learning from the best."
"Bravo," Azar murmured. Her natural dialect was smooth and slow. "Those are quite the achievements for someone so young. You've really grown up, haven't you?" she said as if it were a realization.
Kyoko tilted her head, unsure of the notion. She had. She knew she had. But the concept was part of a sealed way enclosure in her mind. It was nature that she'd age, but to avoid the loom of future expectations, she had adapted to viewing her youth as a state of being rather than fleeting. She had always busied herself with looking forward that she forgot to look back and trace her steps.
"I suppose so," she said after a moment.
Fuhito leaned closer to Kyoko, seemingly satisfied. "For your information, Karp and Azar are in town for a little bit. Karp's visiting family and Azar will be around. So there will be plenty of opportunities to chat. If you still need to, you may resume packing if you like."
Kyoko nodded and gratefully took the permission to leave. She pushed the chair backward from the table, stood up, and pushed the chair in. She nodded to them.
"It was good to see you," she half-lied.
It was difficult, and it was relieving. It answered unknown questions about where they had been. And it was hard to have to remember. But they were still good people, kind enough to come back to visit.
The three of them gave various phrases of parting. Vlad gave her a salute of a wave. Karp said, "Hope to see you later," with a smile, and Azar nodded.
"I look forward to seeing you around then."
Not wanting to linger any longer, she quickly took leave out the kitchen opening, down the hall, up the creaky steps. The voices of the adults talking with one another muddied into a muffled background track as Kyoko made her way deeper into the house.
Her eyes watched the material of the dark green carpet pass by under her feet as she treaded to her room. She welcomed the much-needed mental break.
She needed a moment to outlet her grief.
II
Sakha, Russia
15/8/23
10:34
Kyoko grabbed the ends of both sleeves of her purple leather jacket laid out before her on her bed. Her hands did not itch or ache. Today, she could be productive.
She placed both arms of the jacket opposite of each other. She folded the jacket in half, making the collar touch the bottom. Then, she folded it in half again, this time along the side, creating a smaller square of purple leather.
When she was done, she tucked her favorite jacket into her suitcase sprawled open on the foot of the bed.
In the second half of her childhood, spent raised by her grandfather, he was quick to ensure that she knew one of the many important rules of his home was making her bed. To test that she tucked her bed sheets tight enough, he would drop a quarter onto the comforter to see if it would bounce. If it didn't, she had to do it all over again.
"It's good for you," he would tell her when insisting on the trivial rule. "It gives you a sense of order. Clears your mind."
Now, it was ingrained into her. Her half-childhood bed's gray wooly comforter was tucked tightly between the mattress and the wooden frame.
That morning, when she lifted the blinds of the window beside her bed, she only crept them open a fraction. Later on, she realized her mistake and fully opened them. As she packed, her windows were still fogged over, a misty light gray obscuring her vision out the window.
Her bed, which she stood in front of, was tucked into the back corner of her room. Across from the bed, against the opposite wall, was her light wooden dresser. Its drawers hung open as she moved between it and the bed, packing her clothing into her suitcase.
The door to the bedroom was on the same wall as the dresser, just on the opposite side. Behind her, she heard a knock on the door before the knob turned, and the door creaked open. She didn't bother to turn around, already knowing who it was, and continued her task.
"Still packing, I see," Fuhito commented from the doorway.
"Mhm," Kyoko responded in a hum. "Don't want to overstay my welcome."
Between the two of them, they did not joke. At least, not in a way where they made each other giggle and smile after cracking a cheesy punchline. Kyoko had long ago adopted her grandfather's formal sense of humor.
They both made untrue comments as a poke at humor but did not display sarcasm in their tones. Very often, Kyoko caught her friends off guard with their lack of understanding of her sense of humor. They never picked up her sarcasm unless she put it into her tone, which she never did.
Between her and her grandfather, they had to be smart enough to know that's not what the other meant. Only Celestia had caught onto identifying this.
"Of course, you found a way to make telling jokes a matter of intellect," she said once between giggles. She was one of the few people who found Kyoko genuinely funny.
Fuhito and Kyoko both knew there was no welcome that Kyoko could overstay. No matter how strict her grandfather could be, no matter how upset he could get with her for breaking his conservative moral code, he wouldn't close his door on her. Not after he had opened it for the first time seven years ago.
Fuhito brought a calloused hand to his face, his thumb and pointer finger raised, and scratched his forehead as he smirked before his hand moved down to stroke his thin beard.
"What time is your flight back to Japan again?" he asked.
Kyoko stopped folding clothes to think. "Eleven in the morning. Three days from now," she confirmed to herself before returning to her task.
He nodded despite knowing the second part. He slid his hands into the pockets of his khaki pants. "Aside from packing, are there any other loose ties to take care of before you go?"
"One," Kyoko murmured. "I just have an errand to run after this. Otherwise, I'm set."
"Do you need anything from me?" He leaned a shoulder against the doorway.
"No. Thank you, though. I'll be fine on my own from here." She delicately slid a blouse into her navy suitcase. It went on top of a pair of dark gray pants.
She walked away from her suitcase, and to her dresser, looking for more clothes to pull out inside the drawers to transfer to her bag.
"Your cousin got accepted into university, by the way," Fuhito commented from behind her.
"That's nice."
It wasn't uncommon for her grandfather to provide her with random updates about his side of the family despite her not being close with them. He often brought up details that did not matter in an attempt to make casual conversation.
She was aware that she unfortunately got that from him. Both of them did not know how to start or feed conversations if they were unrelated to their work. So they both brought up mundane ideas that crossed their minds, no matter how out of context they were.
"Maybe you could show him around town," her grandfather added.
"Hm?" She stopped what she was doing to turn around and look at him.
"In Tokyo. Remember?" His bushy eyebrows furrowed, going underneath the gray lens of his glasses. "I told you he applied to the university there last month."
"Who?" she asked.
Fuhito sighed. "Kenta."
Kyoko looked off to the side. She studied where her bedroom floor met her wall before her recollection caught up to her. "Oh," she said, recalling the conversation. "Right." She went back to placing clothing into her travel bag.
"I told Anya you could help settle him in. She's nervous about her oldest moving out so far away. The only thing soothing her mind is him having family there."
Anya was her worry-filled aunt, who lived an hour or two away from them. Because of her, Kyoko had five cousins, all boys. She didn't mind her extended family. Her grandfather would take her to visit them a few times a year throughout Kyoko's teenage years. Especially, during the holidays.
Her cousins were annoying, unintelligent, and afraid of Kyoko, but it was fun to play snow rugby with them growing up. She didn't know every rule, but it was entertaining to tackle one of the pipsqueaks, who had yet to get their growth spurt and put them into a headlock on the ground, tight enough that they couldn't breathe.
By the time Kyoko was fifteen, and Kenta was thirteen and a half— who was the oldest of the four boys, making the rest of them younger than that—Kyoko's kumbaya aunt called off Kyoko getting to play rough with her little cousins, deciding she was too big.
Memories of snow rugby games served as a reminder of Kyoko's violent and harsh tendencies when she was younger. It was proof of how far she had come from her aggressive and angry early teenage years.
Kyoko hadn't seen her aunt and cousins since the last holidays they had before she went to Hope’s Peak. That was nearly two years ago. She wasn't sure what Kenta or any of his brothers looked like now.
"You think you could keep an eye out for him?" Fuhito asked.
"Yeah, sure. Why not?" she responded.
"Good. Families got to look out for one another." They both knew that very well after Jin.
"I moved to Japan completely on my own," Kyoko commented, slightly bragging.
"That's because you were raised by me, not your aunt." Fuhito stood up straight from the doorway and adjusted his glasses on his nose. "Anyway, I'll let you get back to it. Good luck with your errand. Don't stay out too late. I'll make shredded beef for dinner."
"Alright," she said.
With that, Fuhito closed her bedroom door.
III
Ignorance can be a self-medicating mental band-aid. It's a self-blinding tool. It can shield a guilty conscience. That's why ignorance is bliss, and Kyoko cannot remember much of December five years ago.
All around her, scattered on the city sidewalks were people in lightweight coats, each headed in their own direction, each with places to be. And Kyoko had somewhere she needed to be, too.
Her eyes were straight forward, her hands tucked into her pockets, and she weaved and maneuvered around people as she zipped through the sidewalk.
Cars drove by down the road, the tires scratching against the pavement. She and other pedestrians walked underneath large metal piping that extended around the city. In winter, it got too cold to have piping underneath the ground. They would freeze and be unable to work. So the pipes could be seen overhead, running in complex patterns above them, looking like a futuristic pipeline.
A sharp wind cut through the city, giving the illusion that the temperature was colder than it was. Kyoko's trench coat whipped around her legs, carried by the wind.
A few weeks ago, when it had gotten chilly, she pulled the jacket out of the mudroom closet to wear again. She removed the fur vest layer she wore underneath the jacket in winter. It wasn't cold enough to call for the extra layer, and unfortunately for Kyoko, she wouldn't be home long enough to need it.
In a few days, she would be boarding the downtown train to the nearest airport in Sakha and flying out of Russia and to Japan. Her tickets were bought, her bags were mostly packed, and her plans had been made: A late-night phone call confirming that Celestia would meet her at the Haneda Airport. Her flight from France would arrive two hours after Kyoko's. She would camp out until it did. Then, they would travel back to the academy together.
Kyoko didn't often go into the city. It was the country's capital, making it packed enough as is. But one benefit that came from living in one of the coldest habitable parts of the world was that for a capital city, Yakutsk wasn't as populated. It was thicker in population compared to other cities of Sakha, but most people couldn't handle the harsh weather conditions of the far North region of Russia.
But despite that, Kyoko preferred further solitude than a city could provide her. She liked the sleepier suburbs her grandfather lived in. She liked the population of tall pine trees, and the woods, the fewer people, the more open space. The more space she physically had, the more space she had to think. The more she could think, the more she could process. Because she was constantly processing. She was absorbing, recollecting, and decoding.
She worked through everything she could. Every problem needed solving, needed understanding, and needed to be comprehended.
If there's one line per foot of sidewalk, how many lines separating sidewalk squares are on this block? Could she decipher how many feet extended before her to the corner thrift shop?
If the child that ran by her sped up, he could disappear into the crowd faster than his mother could stop him. He would be in a much more vulnerable position to be taken. And if he was with the wrong people, who always seemed to have the best luck, he would be taken. Then, Kyoko knew the first 24 hours would be vital.
If the light-haired man in front of her stayed behind the woman ahead of him after she'd made four right turns, would he be following her? The answer, she knew, would be yes.
If Kyoko's mind continued racing, would she get lost like she did when she was a child? Would she just keep walking? Maybe she could keep walking down this stretch of sidewalk. She could walk until she got to the edge of the city. She could walk until nightfall. Until she was back in the suburbs. Until she was in the woods. And then, who knows where she could go?
She could simply not stop walking and go straight into the sun. Maybe then, she would find all the answers to everything she had ever speculated.
How long would it take humans to evolve beyond the current anatomy of the spine to cause less back pain?
What natural event causes one side of the sky to be dark gray with clouds and the other bright and sunny?
What caused the sole of Kyoko's boot to snap off that day in 7th grade when she got off the bus?
Why does the sun set sooner in winter anyway?
Why are there so many years to live? Why do they fly by so fast?
Why does cancer seem to kill only the best of people?
Is it because it's as cruel as fathers who leave behind children when a mother dies?
Is it because it's as evil as the people who would rig a building with explosives after making an anonymous tip to the police?
And why could Kyoko remember the exact rhyme, tempo, and pitch of Yui's laughter but hardly recall the buzz of her vocal chords?
She could just barely place the soft, gentle, thoughtful dialect that Yui's voice strung its words. But she couldn't remember what her voice sounded like.
She couldn’t remember that. But she at least remembered roses in vitro, a past Christmas present. And the object bumped against her leg from inside her pocket as she walked.
Her destination was downtown, not far from where she was.
If she knew the number of feet of sidewalk to the graveyard, would she be able to calculate how long it would take her to get there? She didn't bring a calculator.
Her inner dialogue kept racing. Her mind kept chasing itself in circles like a dog chasing its tail. It was a common occurrence when her brain was trying to protect itself. This walk from block to block was one she was familiar with. One she only went on to go to the graveyard.
Expanding her social pallet at the academy the past year taught her that it was enjoyable to speak her random thoughts to an ear that would listen. It was a cleanse, a relief for herself. Like her grandfather, she could release her mind's hold on the mundane things. She could clear space for the important things.
For one of the very few times in her life, she wished she had someone beside her. She could verbally purge the spiral of her entrapped mind.
If she were walking with someone, she would turn to them, break the silence, and ask, "Did you know they use drills to bury people when the ground gets too solid from the cold?" Albeit, a large portion of people who lived there would know that, but not all. Either way, it was a conversation prompt.
But Kyoko walked by herself. She asked herself questions she could not answer and recited facts that ideas or sites along the way made her recall.
The wind picked up again. It was sharp and cold. The ends of Kyoko's jacket were picked up by the breeze, flapping behind her. Her bangs whipped against her eyelids. In this small corner of town, the smell of smoke wafted through the gray, cloudy air.
She took a right at the end of the block, and her destination was in sight. Up ahead, in its own pocket, were the front gates to the graveyard.
The glass casing of the vitro steadily bumped against her thigh as she continued down the block. A few people were scattered around. Not many, though. That small corner of the city only had a tobacco shop and a flower store, with its dead-end being the cemetery.
Two men, each on separate sides of the street, smoked a cigarette outside a shop. Their smokey exhales could almost pass as the gray clouds of breath that came from anyone in the cold air. One man wore a blue blazer. He was clean-shaven, with misty yellow eyes and white hair like Kyoko's. The man stared solemnly ahead.
The other man wore a beaten jacket and beanie. He had a shadow of whiskers on his face. His eye bags were deep. His gloves were fingerless. He scanned across the street with tired eyes. His eyes were a reflection of the dull, solemn blanket draped over that part of the city.
Up ahead, by the graveyard entrance, a woman and man walked together, speed-walking. One of them held a bundle of a toddler in a large pink winter jacket, gloves, and a hat. The other parent held a young boy's hand. In the father's unoccupied hand, he held shopping bags. In the mother's, just-bought white lilies.
As they hurried down the sidewalk to their next destination, they passed by a woman who stood outside the graveyard. Her back turned to Kyoko as she looked up at the tall dark gray fence. She had long dark hair that went a little past her shoulders and over her dark maroon peacoat.
She stared blankly, unmoving as if she was as dead as the residents of the cemetery. An unmoving figure, as if stuck in place. The whole world continuing around her while she stayed there.
As Kyoko approached the entrance of the graveyard, she stared at the back of the woman's head, drawn to her. She was reminded of someone.
The woman, who was a few yards away from Kyoko's approach, had her left arm bent at the elbow, raised, and tucked closely to her chest. Kyoko slowed her pace.
She cautiously approached the woman's right. She kept a safe distance a few feet away but lurked to catch a view of the person's face. When she came into view of her side profile, she observed light brown tinted skin, a golden eye, and some marks of light discoloration on the other side of her face barely visible from her side profile.
Her stare signified the traces of being lost in thought. Her facial expression was blank. She, like Kyoko, was configuring something in her head. Maybe calculating, decoding, wondering, debating; Kyoko wasn't sure. But Kyoko admired the strong, confident comportment of a detective anytime she saw it.
"Hello," she tentatively greeted.
Azar turned her head to face Kyoko, taken out of her trance. Her one good eye widened while the other one mimicked a fraction of the movement. Her eyebrow furrowed as she processed the younger's sudden presence, but just as quickly, she recovered. Her face returned to neutral.
She licked her lips, dry from the cold, and nodded to the sign overhead the graveyard gates. "Где они отдыхают," she said, reciting its text. "Fitting," she commented before staring back up at it.
Kyoko nodded, supposing that was Azar's idea of starting a conversation, which Kyoko noted was similar to herself. She pondered Azar's statement, not quite sure what to say. "I wouldn't expect to run into you here," she decided on.
Azar looked back at her in the corner of her eye. "Me neither. I was taking a brisk walk. Ran into this place, got distracted."
Kyoko nodded. Another sharp breeze whipped by them. A few littered pieces of plastic and leaves were taken with it, along with their conversation. When the breeze left, dead air carried.
Kyoko's fingers tensed a little inside her pocket. She and Azar looked up at the gates together. With annoyance, Azar used her good arm to brush her hair out of her face, displaced from the wind.
Kyoko broke the silence. "Do you know someone buried here?" she asked, nodding toward the entrance.
"No. Do you?"
"Yes."
Another small silence. She supposed Azar expected her to elaborate. With small reluctance, she inhaled to speak.
"Do you recall the name Samidare?" she asked.
Azar paused to think. Her eyes flickered around the sky as she thought about it, but Kyoko could identify the losing battle inside her head. She realized the result of Azar's delay was her fault.
"Sorry. I mean, Yui Samidare." Kyoko shook her head. "I'm used to living in Japan."
To her surprise, Azar let out a small huff of a laugh, a small croak. The corner of her lip turned upward, her casual solemn display broken.
"Yes, I do remember Yui." Azar paused, still with a small smile as she reflected. "She asked a lot of questions. A curious soul."
Kyoko knew that. She knew that she was not the only one who admired Azar and all the other detectives in their sector. Yui, who she now understood was nearly as much a child as Kyoko was despite being older, also liked looking up to the adults.
"I remember she was one of the younger apprentices that we had," Azar continued. "And the youngest of those we lost that night. I'm sure you're here to pay respects before you leave?"
The leather of Kyoko's glove skimmed against the glass of the test tube in her pocket before her fingers wrapped around it. She let the gray cloud of her exhales carry away the heaviness of her thoughts as they dissolved into the air.
The cold sinking its teeth into her skin matched the bitterness seeping into her brain. They were a quasi-fitting pairing. She bit at her inner lip.
The two women stood there. One in black, one in maroon. One waiting, one thinking. Azar stood patiently. Kyoko understood she was obligated to give her a response. She pushed down the brought-up bile of sorrow and opened her mouth to speak.
Kyoko nodded. "Yeah," she admitted. Not told. Admitted. It was a confession. Not just to Azar. But to herself.
When Kyoko lived there before Hope's Peak Academy, in a time before she was deemed the ultimate detective, before exposing her identity to get accepted into the school, before cutting contact with her grandfather, before connecting again, she came here seldom often.
When she would, she brought a flower, laid it there, stood for a moment, left… Nothing more to say, nothing more to think. Nothing more to do. Nothing more to process or wonder about.
Because that's what death was, the absence of existing. The absence of something being there any longer. So with all the wonders and questions of the world that flowed through Kyoko's veins, when it came to death, there was none to have. Because that was it. When something dies, it's over.
Once Kyoko knew the cause of death. The who, what, when, where, and why, then there was nothing else to ask. Nothing else to wonder. Nothing else to think. Because if she did, it would hurt too bad.
The night that building burnt down, Kyoko understood she could not live life. She could only survive it. Because she survived that night. Yui did not.
The girl she was obsessed with because she was kind and funny. Because she was older and actually cared about her. Because she was the first real friend she made since her mother died and her father left. Because Yui was the first person she met aside from her grandfather, who was also born in Japan before moving to Russia. Because she was so relatable like that. She wanted to be a detective too.
Kyoko met her one of the many times Fuhito took her to work with him. She was shadowing just like Kyoko would do years later. And she was so wise. She explained things to Kyoko that she did not understand so gently and non-judgmentally, in a way Kyoko hadn't experienced since her mother died. In every way, Yui was a big sister to her.
And now, forever frozen in time from death, Kyoko was older than her.
Yui died at sixteen. Kyoko stood there at eighteen, nearly nineteen, rereading the chapters of her life over and over, constantly looking at the ending and expecting to find another page added. All the while, she watched as her own life story slowly got longer and longer than Yui's.
Kyoko wished she could blind herself to that truth. She wished she wasn't so bitter about the last two years of her life that she got to live, and Yui didn't. She wished she could stop imagining the last two years of her achievements being Yui's. What if Yui got to turn seventeen, then eighteen? What if she got enrolled in Hopes Peak? What if she got to fall in love for the first time? What if she met the best people ever to call her friends?
What if Yui was right there, twenty-one years old, and so proud of Kyoko going from a thirteen-year-old girl to an eighteen-year-old woman?
The back of Kyoko's eyes stung. The sharp cold of the air and her unblinking stare made the surface of her eyeballs dry and worn.
Azar's presence beside her became a hazy afterthought during her reflection. The maroon peacoat blurred in her peripheral vision. But then, Azar brought Kyoko back into focus.
"I lost someone that night, too."
In her disoriented lull, Kyoko could have almost chalked Azar's low, solemn voice to the wind. As if Mother Nature had breezed by them and whispered to Kyoko that all things die. Mother Nature had lost so many things to death, too. No need to be sad about the natural order.
But she came to her senses. She broke her stare from nothing in particular and looked at the older woman beside her. Azar turned her head to face her head-on. Her scars were on full display for Kyoko, like they were for everyone.
Kyoko couldn't read her expression. She wondered if it was partially due to half of Azar's face being mostly motionless; the muscles were unable to move underneath the heavy makeup of the disfigured flesh. But even on the right side of her face with smooth skin, an almond-shaped eye, and perfect casing and framing of skin and flesh around bone structure, unharmed and undisturbed, Kyoko still couldn't read her. She was too talented to display what she was feeling. For Kyoko, it was almost like looking into a mirror.
"Everyone in the basement, the SWAT team," Azar spoke. She paused to shake her head. "They all died instantly."
Kyoko knew that. Yui died instantly, too. At least, she was speculated to have. Her burnt, charred, and dismembered remains underneath the ruins of the building were too disfigured to trace how long it would have taken her to die.
Azar studied the patterns traced into the sidewalk beneath their feet in another pause. Kyoko's grip tensed and untensed around the rose in vitro in her pocket as if she could squeeze some good out of it, something more positive than the stunned hue of remorse between her and Azar.
Ready to speak again, Azar raised her head and looked her in the eye. "Oliver Caffrey. He was an officer. Did you know him?"
Azar was restrained. She was well-educated and trained in keeping a poker face. Any heavier thoughts and feelings that were sure to be past the thick layer of her skin were indistinguishable. But on the topic of a man named Oliver Caffrey, Kyoko could outline the tinted desperation that highlighted her aura. She sensed that Azar was strongly hoping for Kyoko to nod and say she did recall him.
Azar looked like she needed to hear that from Kyoko. Perhaps, Kyoko wondered, that was her form of grief. Maybe she needed to know there was someone else out there who knew him, too, that he was still remembered by someone other than Azar.
But Kyoko couldn't provide her with any solace. The name was not familiar to her. She met some SWAT members when she was growing up, but only briefly in passing, unlike Vlad and Karp, and very few.
"I can't say that I do," Kyoko admitted.
Azar nodded. She looked away and toward the tree line in the distance as she processed and came to accept the information. Kyoko noticed that despite the stability of her facial expression, the light gray of her exhales came out a little heavier.
"He was my fiance," she revealed. "We were supposed to get married four months before it happened. And instead of getting to marry the love of my life, I had to bury him instead."
It was a choked revelation. Bitterness tugged at the corners of Azar's lips. Her mouth curled upward in disdain, and she scoffed. Her facial expression returned to solemn indifference.
“I knew him for…” Azar sighed as she calculated. “Eight and a half years. And we were together for about four and a half before he proposed. I couldn’t imagine a world without him.”
"Where did you bury him?" Kyoko asked.
"His family and I wanted him to be buried at home. In Australia. We both grew up there, and that's where we met. So we knew it was right to lay him to rest in his hometown. We had moved here for a new life, and because he had some extended family in Russia. We only got to live here a few years together."
Kyoko took notice of the various patterns of gray around them. Gray sky, gray sidewalks, gray buildings, gray gates. It was like the two of them couldn't receive any relief and breath of air away from the burden of constant melancholy. How could it ever be possible to find peace after what had happened?
"I'm sorry you lost him," Kyoko said. Because it was all she knew what to say. The similarity between her and Azar's story could not aid her. Even if she inserted herself into Azar's position, she wouldn't know what she would want someone to say to her about Yui.
Azar did not respond. She stood there silent, cemented into the ground, lost in her own world. Perhaps, a world where Oliver could be alive. And Yui, too.
Kyoko recalled what Azar said back at her grandfather's house, that she hadn't been in Sahka since December of 2018. Maybe being in this town where hardly anyone remembered that night except for those who experienced it was making her relive it all over again. Maybe she could smell the smoke and feel the fire vividly, just like Kyoko could. Maybe this city she once loved was now ruined. The screams of that night were too far rooted into the soil to ever be removed, and now both of them felt the death all over again when they stood there in that wretched city.
It was with that idea, that Kyoko and Azar were alike, that Kyoko wanted to further construct a bridge to one another. Azar knew what it was like. All of it.
Vlad didn't lose anyone he loved. Karp didn't get burned. And her grandfather wasn't there.
Azar and Kyoko had been dealt the same unfair hand of cards. The other had a different version of each other's story. It was a parallel Kyoko had never found with anyone else before.
"Would you like to come with me?" Kyoko asked. "To Yui's grave," she clarified. "You knew her too."
Azar paused in hesitation and surprise at the invitation. Then, she slowly nodded her head. "I'd be honored. Aside from Oliver, I haven't paid any respects to anyone else who died that night."
Kyoko gave her a nod in gratitude. "Nobody goes to her grave consistently except for her family and some old friends who come here and there. I think a new face would be nice."
Somehow, that made Azar smile, and she nodded her head toward the entrance as if to tell her, “Lead the way.”
Kyoko led her through the gate and the cobblestone paths of the graveyard. They passed by lines of headstones stretching for yards in both directions.
Kyoko stayed straightforward. She counted rows to keep track of placement. Beside her, Azar scanned curiously, observing the graves. Some were cleaned, well taken care of, and had flowers left by loved ones on them. Other tombstones were dusty, abandoned, and long forgotten.
In the fourth to last row of headstones, Kyoko led them into a right turn into one of the aisles. Yui's was the fourth one in. Kyoko recalled her fourteen-year-old self reciting in her head over and over, “Fourth to last, fourth in. Fourth to last, fourth in. It's always the fourth,” when she came to visit after she got out of the hospital.
And there it was. A light gray slab sticking out of the dirt, once polished and nice, but beginning to sub come to the elements. Dirt engraved into its etches and corners crumbling.
Yui Samidare
Beloved daughter, sister, granddaughter, and friend
August 31st, 2002 - December 24th, 2018
Kyoko removed the rose in vitro from her pocket. Gently, she kneeled and placed the tube with the rose inside against the headstone. Instead of moving to stand up, Kyoko stayed there, close to the ground, and observed the grave.
Azar stood above her, analyzing the text etched into the stone. Her eyes grimmed when she read the short amount of time between 2002 and 2018.
"There is no greater sin," she said, "than death that could have been prevented." Azar then murmured something in Yakut. It was spoken too fast for Kyoko's intermediate skill with the language to understand, but the sentence sounded like some kind of prayer.
Kyoko stood. The wind blew, the trees' leaves shook, and the dead grass beneath them moved stiffly.
In four days, Kyoko would leave again to go live a life Yui could have lived, had she lived. But she didn't. Nothing else to think, nothing else to wonder, Yui was gone. Her story was done. And no matter how badly Kyoko wanted a continuation, it would never happen.
Kyoko delicately placed her hand on the rough concrete of the stone. She couldn't feel the texture through her thick gloves, but even if her gloves were off, she most likely would only feel half of it.
To Kyoko's surprise, she noticed she had been outside long enough to nearly begin to shiver. Only an hour in thirty-degree weather, and she was cold? She realized Japan's warmer climate was starting to take its toll on her.
"Did you know that in winter, the ground gets so solid from the cold that they have to use drills to dig graves?" Kyoko asked.
"Yes."
Yui did, too. Kyoko remembered her grandfather telling her the fact when she was twelve, and the next time she saw Yui, she told her too. Then she might have told her a few times again after that. Yui never said anything, though. Anytime Kyoko repeated a fact to her, Yui always pretended to hear it for the first time.
She had an unlimited amount of patience, an extremely rare attribute. She would have been an incredible detective.
Kyoko, too, murmured a prayer in Russian.
"Пусть Бог направляет вашу душу, друг мой."