Chapter Text
The dark gray sky hung low as the faint raindrops began to fall, the air getting heavier and gloomier. Before me, the opulent mahogany coffin was slowly lowered inside the deep grave, muffled sobs and whispered words of reassurance filled the silence. The man who now was my former father-in-law was finishing his speech, his voice cracking every other sentence as he tried his best to keep his composure. “Grief will be a language written in your name, every silence a scream of what you should have been.” No, the person resting inside that casket wasn’t my wife, but for a fleeting moment in time, she could have been. She was the sweetest soul I’ve ever known. I feel like an idiot and a coward for having ignored her love, for so long and when… When I finally decided to take a step forward and announce our relationship as official, fate tore her away from me.
During her school trip, just weeks after Momo turned 17, she vanished without any warning, only to be found dead in the rooftop pool of the hotel where she’d stayed with her classmates and teachers. For lack of conclusive evidence, her death was ruled a suicide, leaving my former girlfriend’s loved ones, and me, of course, drowning in sadness and grief. Still, at least for me, something didn’t make sense amidst all of that: Why would Momo take her own life? Her family loved her, she was always hanging out with her friends, she just got accepted by her dream university, and I… I had been a good boyfriend, or at least I was trying to be. The pieces just didn’t fit. I raise my eyes, and among the crowd of black clothed mourners still weeping for her absence, my gaze locks onto two people: Tomoko Kimura, Momo’s best friend, her hands clenching her black dress like she was holding herself together. And Okada Isei, the philosophy teacher, his eyes were dry, his posture too still, his stone face serious and unflinching, as if he had rehearsed this moment.
Momo was too kind to see it, but Tomoko had always been a jealous parasite. She nudged my girlfriend towards every single bad decision while always taking hers out of the line. She copied her school work, begged for clothes and jewelry, ‘borrowed’ money she never returned. She turned people against Momo, even tried sinking her claws into me more than once. The truth? I bet the bitch is probably ecstatic Momo’s dead. That is, if she isn’t the killer herself.
And of course, Isei, that fucking bastard of a predator. He was Momo’s teacher since elementary school, always giving her special attention, it was ‘extra classes’ this, ‘gifted student’ that. It makes me sick to my stomach. He even managed to slither his way onto the faculty of the very university she was planning to enroll next year. Like he was hunting her. And now there he is, like he has any right to mourn . I want to smash his teeth in. Something happened on that trip. I know it. Whether Tomoko set her up or that bastard tried laying his hands on Momo… I just need to prove it, there has to be a way.
I’m awakened from the haze of my thoughts by a familiar scent. A fragrance that could soothe me like a strong sedative, make the hatred and pain melt away. My knees are dug into the damp grass, and from the corner of my vision I see the sharp, polished heels stopping beside me, and yet I don’t move, I don’t dare look up at her. Without a word, she pulls me up, her nails digging into my arms as she forces me to stand, then she crushes my body against hers. One hand cradling the back of my head as she fists my hair, fingers tangling along my strands. Around us, the entire world fades, not because time has stilled, but because she’s erased it: the voices blur into static, both external and the ones inside my head go quiet, the weeping, the hollow condolences that made my skin crawl, all the injustice of the situation. Gone, there’s just her now. The cemetery lies empty around us. The rain doesn’t touch me anymore, she's made herself my shelter with her body, her embrace, her cage, my cage. All that remains is warmth, her scent of lavender and home, the way she holds me like she could stitch my gaping wounds shut with her mere fingers alone, wounds she put there herself. And I let her, after all she’s always been like this, steadying me when I waver, healing what even time itself can’t, and in the end, she’s the only one whose hands can hold my pieces together.
When I open my eyes, it’s all over. Momo is buried, sealed away forever. The mourners have scattered like bugs, leaving the two of us under her black umbrella, the muffled pitter patter bringing me back to reality. She’s still holding me. Her fingers stroke my hair, loving, passionate, soothing, possessive, hungry. I know this touch more than anything. She’s my safe harbor, the most important woman in my life. She would move heaven and earth if it meant I was safe, she would set herself on fire if it meant I was warm. The reason I got involved with Momo in the first place. She’s… She' s…
My mother.
My mother.
It was because of her... No. It was to escape her.
Her sleeve brushes my wrist, cold, damp. Like she dipped her arms in a pool before coming to find me. Yet her hands are warm as her fingers slide down to grip my wrist. It’s the same way she held me as a child. Glancing to the grave one last time I wonder, if Momo’s laugh was really hers, or just an echo of the way my mother cooed into my ear. She kisses the corner of my lips and I taste salt, maybe from the rain, maybe from her tears, I can’t tell. I just know I’ll drink every last drop.
“Let’s go home, Ame.”