Naoto Kisaragi's POV:

As months passed, and the things I wanted to protect decreased one by one, my weaknesses and fears gradually returned. Our family dynamic had changed. Without warning, and drastically, what we once considered our "normal" and "mundane" daily life existed no more. Numerous people visited, offering condolences, their aid. However, in due time, life marched forward. We were expected to march alongside it.

Shiina and Mao didn't leave their rooms for weeks. We rarely exchanged words either. I went to work. Brought in adequate income. Ordered takeout; left food for them outside their doors. Collected them with little to no bites taken out of them each time.

I knew living like this wasn't plausible. But any and all energy had been zapped out of me. It took me everything in my power every day to haul myself to work. Taking time off wasn't an option. And if it was, I'd avoid it. Because then I'd be stuck in my thoughts. Because then I'd remember and remember the things I wanted to forget.

Most days, I half-wondered if it was a lucid dream. She couldn't be gone; surely, she'd charge through the front doors, that silly grin pinned onto her face and with copious amounts of trouble following after her.

If I hadn't taken her at her word. If I'd been the one to drive her to work instead. If I'd stopped her from leaving that day; someway, somehow.

The regrets and heaviness spiralled the soundness of my mind.

Sachiko wouldn't come back. She was neither alive nor a ghost. Instead, she was dead, in a grave below the dirt.

Eventually, I stopped smiling. Because I lost the person I wanted to be with. Because without her, I had less and less things that made me happy.

•❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅•

Fate could be ruthless and at the same time, pitying. It wasn't intentional that I ended up in the same street, that same alleyway, from our youth. The scenery had changed, so did the people; even the sushi shop was long gone. Life had chugged forward but, ironically, the memories were unchanging.

Rain beat down from the dark clouds, soaking me from head to toe. Curled up as I was, I had no recollection of how long I'd been here, or how I'd gotten here. Minuscule streetlights trickled between the buildings, coating my surroundings. I had to get home. Find something for the girls to eat.

I urged myself to stand, do just that, but I couldn't surface the strength. My feebleness was glaring. Did I have too many drinks? I shouldn't have let my co-workers spur me on. Now, my head was cloudy. Now, I couldn't forget.

"You're not the smiling type, are you?"

The unremitting rainfall was obstructed. An umbrella, slung over my head. Through my foggy lenses, the woman of long dark hair and striking looks grinned like no tomorrow. An amused chuckle spilled out of her.

"We definitely gotta fix that."

I half-wondered if I was hallucinating. If she, too, was a figment of my delusions.

Because, it started with those words. An uncanny, out of pocket exchange. The resemblance was eerie. I'd done my best to keep it in for months. The memories, the sadness, the grief. Yet, only then, only now in front of a stranger I barely knew, it came rushing out.

Me, a grown man, bawling my eyes out would've steered away anyone else. Despite that, troubled and caught off guard as she was, Chie didn't turn tail. In fact, she didn't go anywhere at all. Awkwardly planted herself next to me, holding the umbrella over us, as if it would mitigate the rain clouds of my shattered heart. She provided me company until the tears waned, mentioning odd, lighthearted stories of her days as a college professor. Most stories were nothing I considered remotely funny. However, she smiled through it all, and that smile alone moved immotile mountains themselves.

I weakly asked why she was still there to which she had no issues responding, "If I abandon you in the state you're in, my humanity card will be revoked."

"You don't know me."

"Nothing a short conversation can't fix." The corners of her lips tilted higher. "Even the strongest need to cry sometimes. Nobody is invincible. So, just for tonight, with this weird stranger you know little to nothing about, you can stop pretending to be."

Her logic was riddled with holes. A reason like that was all she required to give me company? No Good Samaritan was that selfless.

Possibly, her words held a sliver of truth. I had to pretend. As an adult, as a father, I couldn't break down into an ocean of tears. Stop functioning altogether when I had little girls to support. Since I told myself I couldn't, here I was in this situation now, a watery heap in front of a random woman.

It was almost laughable.

"Ah! Did you smile?"

I straightaway turned my cheek. "It's your imagination."

"I definitely saw one, sarcastic as it was. Woo-hoo, I made you smile."

She raised her arm in mock cheer.

Her peculiarity was endearing. While I could link a few similarities between her and Sachiko, after all, they were wildly different. For the most part, Chie was mature. Had a good head on her shoulders, a motherly tone, strayed from childish antics. She had lost her husband a couple of years back. Currently, due to unforeseen complications from her landlord, she was facing eviction. She was in the midst of visiting apartments in the area for a new place to live when she stumbled across me.

We parted ways by the end of the night but time and time again, we bumped into one another in public. At some point, we accepted these coincidences at face-value. Clumsy greetings. Mediocre small talk. Breezy conversations. Eventually, she moved in and started living with us.

I cried a lot. Most days, until the tears themselves stopped coming and my tear ducts dried. Chie didn't budge. She was ever-present and stable. Since she'd experienced similar grief, her patience was everlasting.

In due course, my smiles returned. Mao and Shiina's as well. Chie had helped blow away the dark clouds that had encompassed our day-to-day. Set in motion our sense of time, which was frozen in the past. Grief had no timeline. Love, in comparison, was far more unpredictable. I loved Sachiko with my entire heart and soul. I'd love her forever and ever and ever. Because I did, because I would, her final request stung as much as it did.

I likely had a long way to go until I could fulfill it. Before our "mundane" and "normal" routine returned to what it once was.

"Dad! Mao swapped the shampoo for pink hair dye!"

"It's Shiina's fault for being an easy target."

"I'll show you an easy target—"

"Ahh! Priestess of Evil, save Mao from the clutches of that she-devil!"

"Girls!" Chie shouted as they raced across the house.

"Shiina, Mao," I tried.

Neither paid us a listening ear, fixated on their cat-and-mouse chase. When they were younger, they rarely got into fights. Sachiko, who attempted to play peacemaker whenever they did, was quickly dragged into their shenanigans. I was always the one who stepped in to mend the situation. Now, Chie had primarily taken on the role.

It'd been years since since they pushed each other's nerves to this degree. Ever since Mao entered her second year of middle school, she'd opened up drastically. Shiina had copious of stories to share about her high school and the many individuals she'd gotten the honour of befriending. These last two years had been treacherous, but we'd pushed forward.

"Hey!" I rebuked once more. They zigzagged, crashing into vases, nearly knocking over the coffee table. "You two better quit this—"

My foot caught on thin air. Pathetic as it was, I wiped out on the ground.

"Dad!" they shouted simultaneously.

In an instant, they were at my side, their malice toward one another long forgotten. Chie was there too, worry painting her features.

"Be more careful!" Shiina chastised.

"Where does it hurt? Mao will recite a healing incantation!" Mao pressed.

"Naoto, are you all right?" Chie demanded. "Should I phone the doctor?"

While my lower back and buttocks stung, my heart was warm.

"Girls," Chie said. "Do you see what your tactless actions have caused?"

"It's all Mao's fault," Shiina defended. "If you lecture anyone, let it be her."

"Is not!" Mao protested.

While the three went back and forth, I readjusted my half-fallen glasses and laughed under my breath. It was wholly instinctive, dragging all three of them into a hug. I couldn't stop smiling.

The happiness Sachiko bestowed me—the happiness my girls and Chie continued to provide me—were gifts I'd treasure forever.

Because I met the people I wanted to be with. Because with them, I found more and more things I wanted to protect.

THE END