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“You must be mistaken— I don’t know who you are.”
“Me either, but I’m not mistaken,” the man in front of her said, and she felt an odd pull in her chest.
Mitsuha looked down at the clenched hands in her lap, and realised with a start that they were shaking. Her heart rate was abnormal. Her cheeks felt too warm. And it was as if her whole body was trying to remind her of something that her mind had forgotten. She looked back up at the stranger.
He was handsome, with feathery, dark hair growing out over his eyes and down to his nape. He had dark, soulful blue eyes that held some fierce power beheld in them, and he seemed younger than her too. Of course, Mitsuha had seen other, more attractive men in Tokyo, but none of them made her feel so out of her depth. None of them had filled her with this sort of longing.
She swallowed.
He was right. They weren’t strangers.
Mitsuha and the man, Taki, he said he was (even his name made her heart ache), had gone to grab coffee after their strange encounter on the stairs.
“So… um, this is weird,” she laughed awkwardly, after she realised that the silence had been unnaturally long. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked at him.
“Tell me about it,” he said, exhaling. He seemed relieved too, and she was pleased to note that he was blushing too.
“I’m sure I’ve met you somewhere, but the funny thing is, I can’t remember a time,” she admitted. “Did you… possibly, grow up in Itomori?”
“Nah, born and raised in Tokyo. I’m a city guy. And I never visited Itomori either, not before the comet, that is.”
She nodded. They were silent for a little while.
“How did Itomori’s people survive, anyway?” Taki said, and then quickly added. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
Mitsuha swallowed and thought deeply of that night. She remembered running around with Teshi and Saya at the festival, she remembered arguing with her dad about something, she remembered feeling all scratched up and bruised, and tired. And she remembered the feeling of elation, and then the comet. She remembered the comet, and the feeling of impossibly overwhelming dread. Which had never made sense to her. That whole night had so many missing memories. So many missing puzzle pieces. When people asked her of what happened that day, how everyone came out unhurt despite the festival below, how everyone just happened to be at the right place at the right time, she would just say she didn’t want to talk about it, and people normally left her alone after that.
But it was because she had forgotten.
Saya had told her it was a coping mechanism, that her brain was secretly locking up all the memories of the traumatic event until she was ready to deal with it, but it had been eight years since and Mitsuha was still left empty. Her father had a role to play, she knew. There were so many theories circulating about him online, and he had gotten successful from that announcement he had made to save Itomori’s citizens. When she questioned her dad about it, he gave her a troubled look and told her that she was the one who demanded him for it. When pressing him for details, she didn’t get any, except a stony glare, but sooner or later the realisation dawned on her that her dad didn’t know much more than that, and she had unsettled him. She had asked Yotsuha about it, and she had just rolled her eyes and said she was acting crazy that day. Saya and Teshi were also blank, all they remembered was the announcement her father made.
Looking at Taki now, she had a crazy thought that maybe he would know.
“I’ve forgotten,” she said miserably. “But I think… I think I had something to do with it.”
Taki nodded, his eyes set on her, serious and believing, like he trusted every word she said, like he knew what she was saying was true. It pushed her to continue.
“It’s so weird, I remember the Tiamat comet close-up, or, at least the meteor. I remember it filling up my vision, like it was right on top of me. But that can’t be right, because then I would be dead.”
Taki nodded again, like he understood. Almost as if he had seen it too.
“I had a dream about that,” he admitted, and Mitsuha quirked a brow with interest. “About a girl, in a blue yukata, in the middle of a field, and I remember the debris showering down around her, and the meteor. It was so weird.”
“Did the yukata have white flowers?”
Taki looked at her in surprise.
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Well, at least I think so. I don’t remember much. Dreams fade easily. Anyways, how did you know?”
“Because that’s what I was planning on wearing to the festival,” she said. “I was planning on wearing my blue yukata with white flowers, but I ended up changing. I think I was in my school uniform. I don’t really know why I never dressed up in it, though.”
Taki was silent, but Mitsuha could almost see the gears turning in his head as he thought of a logical explanation for it. However, for Mitsuha at least, she felt much better purely because she was talking about her experience. Maybe she knew Taki, maybe she didn’t, but she had been withholding this information from anyone. She wouldn’t talk about it to her grandma or her sister, she couldn’t dream of opening up to her dad about it, and she didn’t even tell Saya and Teshi. She thought she was losing her mind for a bit, and perhaps they would realise Yotsuha was right and drop her off at the closest mental facility to be done with all her drama, but Taki didn’t seem to doubt her for a second.
“I remember I watched the comet in Tokyo,” Taki finally said at last. “With my family, and then I went out to the balcony to watch it, and that was that. But I… I also remember something else. I remember running. Towards something… away from the comet, and feeling this absolute mountain of weight on my shoulders. And… I wasn’t in Tokyo either.”
“Maybe,” Mitsuha started, feeling her cheeks flame a little before she even said it, “maybe you were running towards someone.”
Taki looked at her intently, and Mitsuba took in just how big and deep his eyes were, with long straight lashes framing them and fixed dilated pupils. Something in his gaze clears.
“Maybe you’re right,” he affirmed, and then he got up from his chair.
He looked around the small Tokyo cafe they had situated themselves in, ignoring the louder outside world of the city. Mitsuha’s heart beat picks up again, and it’s like she’s seeing the world in a new light now that she has met Taki. Like a little part of the messy, convoluted puzzle that was her life clicked in snuggly, and everything was just a tad more manageable now.
It didn’t make sense, yet it did.
“We have to find out what happened,” Taki said, so quietly that Mitsuha almost missed it. But it was like she was attuned to him now, and she nodded firmly.
They weren’t going to be lost anymore. They weren’t going to be constantly wondering about their past and always drawing blanks. It probably wouldn’t be easy to recover, and maybe they never will get the full story, but they would at least start the process.
They did find each other again, after all.