The snow continued falling outside Clara's apartment, transforming Shin-Tokyo into something softer, quieter, as if the city itself was trying to muffle the weight of what had been spoken. Buki sat on his bedroom floor, the journal Dr. Tendo had given him still open to the letter he'd written to Karanome—words that would never reach their destination, apologies that would never be received, love that had nowhere to go except inward, eating him alive.
His hands were bandaged again. Fresh gauze wrapped around palms and fingers where he'd clawed at himself during the worst moments of remembering, trying to dig the memories out physically when they became too much to carry internally. Dr. Tendo had come—not for therapy, just medical treatment, cleaning wounds and applying salve and wrapping them efficiently while saying nothing about the deeper damage. She'd left medication adjustments and departed, a background figure in a crisis too large for clinical intervention.
Clara and Yuki remained. Had been there for hours now, through all the confessions, through the breaking, through the aftermath where Buki existed in a strange liminal space between complete collapse and fragile stability.
"I need to go back," Buki said suddenly, his voice hoarse from crying and speaking. "To the postal office. Need to deliver letters. Need to—need to do something other than sit here drowning in my own history. Alright."
"Buki-san," Yuki protested gently, "you've just relived two lifetimes of trauma. You need rest. Time to—"
"Time to what?" Buki interrupted, looking at her with eyes that had seen too much, carried too much, survived too much. "Process? Heal? Accept? I've had three years at the Northern Clinic for that. Had fifteen years across two lives for that. Time doesn't fix this. Nothing fixes this. So I might as well be useful while I'm broken."
Clara's expression was complicated—concern and understanding warring for dominance. "Being useful isn't the same as being okay."
"I'll never be okay," Buki stated flatly. "That's not—that's not possible anymore. But I can be functional. Can deliver letters. Can witness other people's grief while carrying my own. Can exist in the world instead of just existing in my head. That's—" He struggled for words. "—that's survivable. Barely. But survivable."
They were quiet for a moment. Outside, the snow had intensified, covering everything in white that would melt by morning but for now created the illusion of renewal, of clean slates, of possibilities.
"Okay," Clara said finally. "Tomorrow. Light schedule. Just a few deliveries. And I'm coming with you." Buki nodded. Tomorrow. One more day. One more attempt at existing despite everything.
The Next Day
The Imperial War Correspondence Office felt different in winter. The building itself seemed to huddle against the cold, its worn facade suggesting an exhaustion that matched Buki's own. Kaito was there, as always, sorting letters with the methodical precision of someone who'd been doing this so long it had become meditation rather than work.
He looked up when Buki entered. His weathered face showed no surprise at the fresh bandages, the hollow eyes, the barely-contained fragility. Just nodded once—acknowledgment, acceptance, witness.
"Light schedule today," Kaito said, sliding three envelopes across the counter. "All civilian correspondence. Nothing about death. Just—people staying connected. Letters of love, actually. Seems appropriate for the season."
Letters of love. The concept felt foreign but not hostile. Buki took them carefully, his bandaged hands making the simple action difficult.
"Buki," Kaito said quietly, and something in his tone made Buki pause. "Whatever you're carrying—and I know it's substantial, I can see it in how you move, how you breathe, how you exist in space—remember that you're not alone in it. Everyone here—" He gestured vaguely at the office, at the letters, at the world beyond. "—everyone is carrying something. Some carry grief. Some carry guilt. Some carry both. You're not unique in suffering. Just unique in how young you are while experiencing it."
The words should have been comforting. Instead, they highlighted the impossibility of Buki's situation—fifteen years old, carrying thirty years of trauma across two lifetimes, existing in pain that most people didn't accumulate until old age, if ever.
"How do you carry it?" Buki asked. "Your grief. I know you have it. Can see it in your eyes. Same dead quality as Takeshi Hayashi. Same exhaustion. How do you wake up every day and choose to continue?"
Kaito was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice carried weight that suggested decades of practice surviving the unsurvivable.
"I don't choose to continue," he admitted. "I just haven't chosen to stop. That's different. Continuing implies active will, direction, purpose. I just—persist. Wake up because my body wakes up. Sort letters because the letters need sorting. Exist because existence is the default state until it isn't. There's no grand meaning to it. Just—persistence."
The honesty was brutal and somehow perfect. Not inspiring. Not uplifting. Just true. "That sounds exhausting," Buki said.
"It is," Kaito agreed. "Profoundly exhausting. But it's also—" He paused, searching for words. "—it's also what we do. Those of us who've survived things we shouldn't have survived. We persist. We carry our dead. We witness other people's grief while drowning in our own. And occasionally—very occasionally—we have moments that make the persistence feel almost worthwhile."
"What moments?" Buki asked.
Kaito looked at him directly. "This one. Right now. Watching you still standing despite everything you've been through. Watching you choose to deliver letters instead of giving up completely. That matters to me. Reminds me that persistence is possible, even when it seems impossible."
The words landed somewhere in Buki's heart—not healing anything, not fixing anything, but creating a small space where the crushing pressure eased slightly. He mattered to Kaito. His persistence mattered. Not in grand ways, not in world-changing ways, but in the small, human way of one suffering person witnessing another's survival.
"Thank you," Buki said quietly. Kaito nodded once. "Go. Deliver your letters. Come back whole. That's all I ask." The three deliveries were indeed letters of love.
The first was from a soldier to his wife—not a final letter, not a death notification, just a simple expression of missing her, of counting days until he could return home, of small domestic details he was looking forward to: her cooking, her laugh.
The wife cried when she received it—happy tears, relief tears. Her husband was alive. He loved her. He was coming home. The simple miracle of continuity, of promises that might actually be kept.
Buki watched her joy and felt—something. Not happiness exactly, but a distant recognition that good things still existed in the world. That not all letters carried death. That sometimes love persisted despite war, despite distance, despite everything.
The second letter was from a father to his daughter—apologizing for missing her birthday due to work obligations, promising to make it up to her, including a small drawing of a flower he'd seen that reminded him of her.
The daughter was perhaps nine years old. She held the letter like treasure, tracing her father's handwriting with small fingers, already composing her reply in her mind. The simple exchange of I see you, I love you, you matter to me.
Buki thought of his own father. Masato Nakamura, who'd died suddenly at the kitchen table, who'd never gotten to say goodbye, whose last interaction with Daichi had been a reminder to study for upcoming exams. No dramatic final words. No profound wisdom. Just ordinary parental concern, made precious by the fact that there would be no more of it.
The third letter made him stop breathing.
It was addressed to a young child—eight years old, according to the mother who answered the door. From his older brother, currently serving in the military. The letter itself was simple: miss you, thinking of you, stay safe, I'll be home soon, keep drawing those pictures you love so much.
The eight-year-old kid took the letter with a gap-toothed smile, messy hair sticking up despite obvious attempts to comb it down. Looked exactly like Karanome had looked. Exactly like the little brother Buki had died protecting.
"My brother's a hero," the kid said proudly, clutching the letter. "He's fighting bad guys and keeping everyone safe and he promised he'd come home and teach me to ride a bike properly and he never breaks his promises."
Never breaks his promises.
The words hit Buki like physical force. Heart rate spiking. 8.7. 10.2. 12.4. Pressure building. Because he'd broken his promise. Had promised Karanome he'd be fine, that he just needed to rest, that everything would be okay. And then he'd died. Broken every promise. Left his little brother alone with trauma and grief and the knowledge that sometimes heroes died and promises meant nothing.
Clara's hand on his shoulder, grounding. "Buki. Breathe. You're here. You're in Shin-Tokyo. That's not Karanome."
But it could be Karanome. Could be what Karanome looked like now—fifteen years older, twenty-three years old in 2042 Tokyo, possibly with an adopted younger sibling of his own, possibly having survived and thrived and moved forward despite everything.
Or it could be nothing. Could be a child in Shin-Tokyo who had nothing to do with Nakamura Karanome except superficial resemblance and the triggering of memories that wouldn't stay buried.
"Is the mail person okay?" the child asked his mother, concerned. "He looks sad." "He's fine, sweetheart," the mother said quickly, though her expression suggested she disagreed. "Just tired from delivering so many letters."
Tired. Yes. Exhausted from carrying two lifetimes. Exhausted from surviving what should have killed him. Exhausted from existing in the impossible space between Daichi and Buki, between death and life, between forgetting and remembering.
They left quickly. Buki moved on autopilot, Clara guiding him, until they found themselves in a small park—the same one where he'd stood under cherry trees with Yuki weeks ago, though those trees were bone now, skeletal against the winter sky.
"I can't do this," Buki said, his voice breaking completely. "Can't deliver letters about love and connection and promises. Can't watch families being whole when mine was destroyed. Can't see people like my brother and not think about Karanome. Can't—"
"So don't," Clara interrupted gently. "Don't deliver letters. Don't force yourself to function. Just—exist. Right here. Right now. In this moment. With me. You don't have to be strong. Don't have to be useful. Don't have to be anything except alive."
Alive. The word felt heavy. Because what did alive mean when you'd died twice? When you existed across lifetimes? When every breath felt like betrayal—continuing when Hana didn't, when General Hazami didn't, when Daichi didn't?
"I don't know how to just be alive," Buki admitted. "Don't know how to exist without purpose or mission or orders. Don't know how to—" He stopped. Because he did know. He'd learned. General Hazami had taught him.
The memory surfaced—clear, precious, painful:
General Hazami sitting beside him after a particularly brutal battle. Twelve-year-old Buki, covered in blood that wasn't his, unable to speak, unable to process. And she'd said: "You don't have to do anything right now, Sakura. Don't have to report. Don't have to analyze. Don't have to function. Just sit here with me. Just breathe. Just exist for a moment without purpose. That's enough. You're enough."
He'd thought she was wrong then. Thought purpose was all he had. But now—now he understood. Existence itself was the achievement. Breathing despite wanting to stop. Continuing despite the weight. Persisting not because it meant anything, but because cessation wasn't chosen yet.
"I think—" Buki's voice was barely audible. "—I think I need to let go." "Let go of what?" Clara asked gently.
"Of needing to know if Karanome is okay. Of needing my death to have meant something. Of needing closure or answers or proof that my suffering had purpose." He looked at the broken cherry trees, their branches empty but alive, waiting for spring. "I need to let go of requiring the universe to make sense. To accept that I died protecting my brother and I'll never know if it mattered. That I was reincarnated and I'll never know why. That I suffered and survived and there's no grand meaning to any of it. Just—things that happened. Pain that exists. Trauma that persists."
Clara was crying now, silent tears running down her face. "And if you let go? What then?"
"Then maybe—" Buki struggled for words. "—maybe I can start living for myself instead of for ghosts. Can deliver letters without being destroyed by them. Can see people like my brother without fracturing. Can exist as Buki without needing to reconcile him with Daichi. Can be both and neither and something new entirely."
"That sounds like healing," Clara said softly.
"No," Buki corrected. "It sounds like survival. Different thing. Healing implies restoration to original state. I can't be restored. Too much damage. Too much change. But survival—survival is possible. Survival is what I've been doing all along, across two lifetimes. And maybe—" He looked at his bandaged hands, evidence of recent self-harm, evidence of pain made external. "—maybe survival is enough. Maybe I don't need to be healed or whole or okay. Maybe I just need to be alive."
The snow had stopped falling. The park was silent except for wind moving through skinned branches, creating sounds that might have been whispers or might have been nothing.
Buki stood under the cherry trees—the same trees that would bloom in spring, that had survived winter after winter, that died and returned and died and returned in endless cycles. Like him. Like everyone touched by trauma. Dying and returning and learning to exist in the space between.
"I want to write something," he said suddenly. "One more letter. Not to Karanome. To—" He paused. "—to myself. To Daichi and Buki both. A letter of closure. Of release. Of letting go."
Clara nodded. "There's a bench. I'll wait."
Buki sat on the cold bench, pulled out the journal Dr. Tendo had given him, and wrote with bandaged hands that made every word difficult but necessary:
Dear Daichi,
You died at fifteen trying to save your little brother. You succeeded—gave him a chance to escape, to survive, to live. Whether he thrived or was destroyed by what he witnessed, you'll never know. And that's okay. That has to be okay.
You were a good brother. Not a perfect one. You couldn't save Hana. Couldn't prevent your mother's breakdown. Couldn't stop your father's heart from failing. But you did what you could with what you had. And you died protecting someone you loved. That matters. Even if you never know the outcome.
I'm letting you go now. Releasing you from the requirement to persist. You died. Your story ended. And what came after—the reincarnation, the new trauma, the war, all of it—that's mine to carry. Not yours.
Rest, Daichi. You've earned it.
Dear Buki,
You were forged in violence. Shaped by systematic abuse. Turned into a weapon before you learned to be a person. And you survived. Killed your tormentors. Survived the streets. Survived the war. Survived losing General Hazami. Survived remembering everything.
You're not a good person. You've killed forty-seven people at minimum. But you're not a bad person either. You're a traumatized person who did what traumatized people do—survived by any means necessary.
I'm releasing you from the requirement to be more than you are. You don't have to become fully human. Don't have to heal completely. Don't have to make sense of your existence. You just have to continue existing. One day at a time. Carrying what you carry. Being what you are.
That's enough. You're enough.
Dear Whoever I'm Becoming,
I don't know who you'll be. Some combination of Daichi and Buki? Something entirely new? I don't know and I'm learning that's okay.
But whoever you are—whatever emerges from this chrysalis of trauma—remember: you survived impossible things. Carried impossible weight. Existed despite every reason not to.
And if you can survive that, you can survive anything.
Live. Not for Karanome. Not for General Hazami. Not for anyone except yourself. Find your spring. Bloom if you can. And if you can't bloom, just persist. Just breathe. Just exist.
That's enough. You're enough.
With love and release and acceptance,
Me
Buki finished writing. Closed the journal. Sat there feeling lighter somehow—not healed, not fixed, but different. Like he'd put down weight he'd been carrying so long he'd forgotten what it felt like to exist without it.
Clara sat beside him. They watched the lost cherry trees together, waiting for nothing, just existing in shared silence. "It's going to snow again soon," Clara observed.
"Yes," Buki agreed. "Probably tonight." "Will you be okay?" Buki considered the question. Really considered it, instead of giving automatic responses.
"No," he said finally. "I won't be okay. Will probably never be okay. But I'll be alive. And that—" He looked at the trees that would bloom in spring despite winter's cruelty. "—that's enough. For now. That's enough. And who knows, my traumas so bad. That I might even start calling myself, Daichi-Buki."
They sat there as evening approached, as the temperature dropped, as Shin-Tokyo prepared for more snow. Two people who'd survived impossible things, learning to exist in aftermath, learning that survival itself was achievement enough.
And somewhere—in Tokyo 2042 or in memory or in the empty rooms of Buki's mind—Karanome existed. Alive or dead, whole or broken, thriving or destroyed. Buki would never know. And that was okay.
It had to be okay. Because some questions never got answers. Some wounds never healed. Some grief never ended. But life continued anyway. Winter gave way to spring. Cherry blossoms bloomed despite everything.
And Buki—damaged, traumatized, carrying death across lifetimes—would bloom too. Eventually. Slowly. Imperfectly. But bloom nonetheless. Because that's what trauma can become sometimes.
EPILOGUE
The letter arrived at the Imperial War Correspondence Office three days later. Not for delivery. For the office itself. For Kaito specifically.
It had been misfiled years ago, trapped in bureaucratic chaos, finally surfacing during a routine archive reorganization. The envelope was yellowed with age, the handwriting shaky but determined.
It was addressed: "To whoever finds this after I'm gone." And it was signed: "Kaito Hanabishi, written in preparation for what comes next." Buki found it while helping sort archived correspondence. Saw Kaito's name. Saw the date—written twelve years ago, shortly after the war's end.
He shouldn't read it. It was private. Personal. Meant for—for whoever came after Kaito was gone. But Kaito wasn't gone. Was still here, still sorting letters, still persisting despite carrying weight that made Buki's look small by comparison.
Buki held the letter. Made a choice. Brought it to Kaito's desk. Set it down without speaking. Kaito looked at it. Looked at Buki. Something complicated happened to his weathered face.
"You found it," he said quietly. "Yes." "And you didn't read it." "No. It's yours. Your story. Your pain. Not mine to access without permission."
Kaito picked up the envelope. Stared at it for a long moment. Then looked at Buki with eyes that had witnessed decades of suffering and somehow still retained capacity for feeling.
"Would you like to know what's in it?" Kaito asked. "Only if you want to tell me," Buki said.
Kaito was quiet. Then nodded slowly. "Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the family I lost. The promises I broke. The weight I carry. And why I persist despite it all."
"Tomorrow," Buki agreed.
They sat there in the Imperial War Correspondence Office, surrounded by letters from the dead to the living, from the living to the dead, from everyone trying to stay connected despite impossible distances.
Two people carrying their dead. Learning to persist. Learning that persistence was enough. And tomorrow—tomorrow they would share their weight. Witness each other's pain. Continue existing despite everything.
Together. One day at a time.
VOLUME 2: BUKI AND KAITO'S JOURNALS
COMING NEXT
TO BE CONTINUED...