A/N: I've had this AU idea thingy in a while because I'm a sucker for reincarnation stories, especially TRAGIC reincarnation stories. The first life is set sometime in the Edo Period, the second in Meiji (post-1885), the third in the 1940s, the fourth in the Millennial era (aka now), and then the canon era, which I'm assuming/going to pretend is a century or so from now. Consider this my contribution to Day 1: Goodbye of Tomadashi Week! ((For the sake of it just pretend they both die relatively early so I have an excuse for small time lapse in between lives.))
. Absence of Farewells .
AU: We're friends/lovers who are always incarnated but one of us tragically dies early in every life.
"Anyway, nice to meet you. I'm Tadashi Hamada." He smiled and held a hand out. Gingerly, she accepted it and shook.
"GoGo," was her simple response followed by a pop of her bubblegum. This guy was cheery. No, not Honey Lemon cheery (god forbid), but enough to make her worry he might bug her and keep chattering while she worked. That ranked pretty high in her pet peeves, right up there with cars in front up her that drove too damn slowly.
Hopefully that wouldn't be an issue.
...
She was a hardheaded daughter of a merchant and he a soft spoken son of a fisherman. In the beginning they'd spent their days hunting for seashells and racing along the shore. She was undoubtedly the faster of the two, but it was up to him to patch up her scrapes and carry her when her ankles pained her.
As the years passed, their days of seashell hunting and racing were replaced by warm embraces and kisses tasting of sea salt. Their dilemmas were no longer scraped knees and twisted ankles, but the impending arranged marriages and surviving another day with this in mind. Their families needed to see reason, the merchant's daughter decided. What was wrong with a fisherman's son, kind and gentle as he was?
That was before the storm and the fisherman who battled it. That was before a filial son ran after him with hopes of saving him. The hopes were in vain, and the merchant's daughter never had so much as a goodbye.
...
Admittedly the doughnuts he brought to the lab weren't bad, even if they were ones his aunt couldn't manage to sell at the café. In any case, she had less complaints if he had anything to say when he passed by her station in he lab.
"Your bike going all right?" he asked.
"Just dandy," she answered. That was a lie. Something about the magnetic suspension was funny. The wheels kept wobbling and fell apart if they so much as touched the ground.
"Good to hear it."
"Mmm." The wheels continued to wobble, and in frustration she yanked it out and threw it in the bin of rejects like a frisbee. Just before she released, however, the edge of the wheel sliced at her finger and she let out a yelp as it landed in the bin with a clanging noise. Immediately the boy in the baseball cap rushed over.
"Are you okay?" he asked, concern in his eyes.
"I'm fine," she said sharply, biting her lip. Crimson blood oozed out of her fingers and fell to the floor in streams.
"That doesn't look too good," he said, examining the cut. "Come to my lab - I have medical supplies."
"I'm f - "
"Look, GoGo, you're getting blood on the floor. It'll only take a few seconds." She frowned. "Please?" he added.
Was he doing puppy dog eyes on purpose? she wondered, half irritated and half amused. The blood was starting to make plip-plop noises on the floor, however, and with reluctance she sighed and agreed to get at least a band-aid.
He was almost as meticulous as Wasabi, insisting on disinfectant and dabbing it gently on the wound. She didn't dare to wince - it was enough having the organization enthusiast act like her mother and she didn't want to waste time by having him stop every five seconds to ask if she was all right. With close precision, he wrapped the bandage around her finger and flashed a satisfied grin.
"All better?" he asked.
She glanced at the bandaged, neatly wrapped and tight. "Um. Yeah, actually. Thanks, Hamada."
"Anytime, GoGo."
...
She was his wife in the next life, secretly taking pride in her husband's selflessness and desire to help others. That same selflessness brought pain sometimes, though.
"America?" she whispered, hesitantly holding his hand. "That's so far from Japan. How can you know when you'll be back, if at all?"
"If I work hard enough, I'll be back in just a few years," he said, giving her hands a reassuring squeeze.
"A few years? That's not fast enough."
"Nothing is fast enough for you," he noted with a chuckle. "Think of what we could do with the money I earn - maybe I can help pay Ito's treatment or relieve the Oshikas of their debt. We could have a better life when I come back."
They wrote after his departure - he wrote about the new sights and people and languages, and she about the markets and neighbors and events at home. But the letters arrived within a month at quickest, then two months. Then seasons. His letters always carried the same apology - for toiling more than writing, for taking longer than he intended. And they always ended with the promise that he was getting closer and would come home soon.
One day there was no letter. There was never another letter. None of them ever ended with a goodbye.
...
She'd never been in his café before, and her first sip of Lucky Cat Latte didn't disappoint. It scalded the tip of her tongue a little, but it was good enough to keep gulping down. A college girl in midst of finals needed the energy boost, after all. Across the table, she noticed him stifling his laughter.
"What?" she snapped.
He pointed to his own upper lip with one hand and hers with the other. Cautiously, she wiped a finger across her mouth and found a tiny batch of whipped cream.
"Seriously?" she sighed. "That's what's making you giggle like a schoolgirl, Hamada?"
"It's funny," he remarked in between chuckles.
"No it isn't," she retorted, fighting to keep her mouth a straight line.
"It kind of is."
"No." Tadashi snorted, which made the corner of her lips turn up. "Okay, fine, just a little."
"You missed a spot, by the way." Before she could wipe it, he reached over (their faces were getting closer, she noted as she felt a warmth in her cheeks) and brushed the edge of her lip with his finger. Instantly he drew back and cleared his throat. "Um, just in case you missed it, you know."
She resumed sipping her latte and let her bangs fall in her face, hoping to keep it out of sight. It was only a moment later that Tadashi lept from his seat and pounced at a short boy with bushy hair making smooching faces at a mop.
...
They were young in another life, very young. That didn't stop him from joining the army when the world was at war.
"I'm loyal to this country," he begged her to understand. "I have to do this."
Like how he had to care for his brother, how he had to love her, how he had to leave them forever. She'd known when he left and she'd known before they even got the letter.
His final goodbye played in her head over and over again like a broken record.
...
Late night lab sessions meant unfinished assignments, last-minute tune-ups, and misplaced tools. They meant hammering headaches, fifty ounces of coffee, heavy eye bags, and sleep deprivation.
Sometimes they meant lost baseball caps, kisses that tasted of mocha, and light snoring. She liked them in that sense.
...
High school was a trying time for everybody, so who could blame a bunch of kids for wanting to let loose with a few drinks? Who especially could blame the one who stayed sober to bring them back home safely?
And who could possibly know why fate decided he, of all people, should skid off the road and tumble into the trees? Why crack his skull and not the girl's beside him?
These were the questions she asked herself and never got the answers to. She thought maybe he tried to say goodbye, but all that came out of his mouth was blood.
...
She'd seen him that night when everything was ablaze and suffocating smoke and ashes filled her nose. Amongst the screams, and she pushed her way to him, she heard him say one thing.
"Callaghan's still in there. Someone has to help."
He hadn't meant for it to be a goodbye.
There wasn't ever going to be one.