NOTES:
/indicates thoughts/
italics means change of timeline
this fic is very much inspired by Nick Joaquin's Guardia de Honor. In fact, the mirror was his idea! >o<
Whatever happens, happens for a reason.
Yoji opened his eyes and focused them on the redhead beside him. One of his arms was stretched across his lanky frame, his pale hand still entwined with his. Yoji smiled. And then, his face fell so suddenly when he tried to remember last night.
There was no sheet draped upon them and the man beside was fully clothed, like he had fallen asleep holding him. He was wearing only pajama bottoms. He carefully unlocked their fingers and sat up. The man stirred but did not wake. Yoji sighed in relief. He intended to open the window but sensed that something was wrong.
Clouded, Yoji pronounced in his head.
Barefooted, he took a step forward. And then, something cut his foot. Wincing, he fell back onto the bed, trying to look at his injury and its cause.
It was a shard of glass.
He finally became aware of the object that was before him. It was a mirror. And it was blocking his window.
The mirror was his. It was the only one that he kept when he left his old office. Simple looking, framed by a thin bar painted black, hugging its oval shape. The legs were fastened to either side of the mirror by means of rivets, thus allowing the change of the angle of reflection. It was quite big-it could accommodate almost a two of him but could only show an image up to his shins.
Yoji could not remember as to why he had kept this mirror. But he could still recall what she had thought about it.
"A mirror! Inside the office! How vain!" Asuka laughed when she entered their office, quickly spotting the huge mirror.
Yoji was sitting on his desk, staring at the mirror in front of him. He ignored the comment. Instead, he mused out loud "I'm trying to remember why I placed it here."
"How about trying to remember why you bought it in the first place?" she suggested, dropping a folder on top of the stacks of unfinished paperwork on Yoji's desk. "Their alleged hideout has been located. We're going to investigate more tonight." She leveled her eyes with Yoji's. "Are you up to it, Detective Kudo?"
His line of thoughts about the mirror was broken. "Of course."
"Good." And then she left.
Yoji tore his gaze from her and once again focused on the mirror. He stood up, striding towards it.
Carefully this time, he approached the mirror. He raised his hands, aiming to remove it from the window's path when he noticed something odd on his reflection. His hands were wounded. There was a big gash on his right palm and several cuts were placed on both hands. He snatched them back, taking a better look at his hands. And so the injuries were true after all. They were from…
/Glass?/
Yoji wondered where all the bits of broken glass came from. When he glanced up again at the looking glass, it was an entire different world that he saw. The walls were not painted white just like his bedroom walls but showed a color of mint green. Gone was the man whom he shared his bed last night and so was his bed. Instead, he saw an office table toped with stacks of what he had assumed reports, a canister full of pens and a telephone at far end. Whatever else that was on that table was blocked by a young man dressed sharply in a dark suit, a pair of dark lens hanging on the bridge of his nose. He had wavy brown hair just like him. Yoji was willing to bet his earnings as an assassin for a month that the guy in front of him was also sporting the same hoop earrings that he had. The young man was imitating his gestures as well, taking in the new surroundings that the mirror held while holding his hands in front of him. It seemed that the young man recognized him. Yoji recognized him as well.
He was Detective Kudo.
He touched the mirror and he saw blood. The detective snatched his hand back to see if they were true. "They're not wounded at all." He said in wonder. When he looked back at the mirror, it was an entire different world that reflected back to his sight.
It wasn't his office. It was a bedroom and a seemingly occupied bed. But what astonished him more was the image of himself half-naked, mirroring the same expression.
"Mine are, though." The man commented back.
"Is this one of those weird yet important dreams? I don't remember falling asleep."
"I remember waking up just moments ago."
They fell silent again.
Yoji placed his hands down and so did the man. Then, out came the question that was plaguing him. "Who are you? Or should I be asking what you are instead?"
"Yoji Kudo. I believe we bear the same name. Though I wonder," the reflection pondered "are we the same?"
"I can't be you." the detective answered. "My arm doesn't have a tattoo." His green eyes fell on the man's left arm and on the said mark on it.
"Maybe you will get one someday."
Detective Kudo thought about that. The one in front of him, could it be a future? He had heard of those things before, parallel dimension and time travel. Some scientists and mathematicians said that time should be should be defined as the fourth dimension along those that determine the length, width and the height. They even had claimed that if one would be able to deduce the relationship between time and distance, time travel would be possible.
But a mirror as a gate? How ridiculous. The image in front of him might as well be a hallucination.
And then, Yoji asked a rather crucial question.
"How is she?" Yoji couldn't help but ask. He asked despite that his mind was close to crashing due to the surge of events. So, he was him in the past? Maybe he could stop her death after all? But this didn't feel real at all. It was like floating somewhere. Somewhere between here and there, like everything had stopped for awhile and time was messed up. Yoji had a dim memory of taking a dosage of some drug that was maybe beyond the amount that he was trained to tolerate. Maybe it was messing his brain. But he could also remember the sound of a broken glass.
But that was that. Then was then.
Today was today.
But faced with such a delightful hallucination, it was so easy to pretend...
"Asuka, you mean? She was here moments ago." the detective cocked his head, trying vainly to take sight of the bed's occupant. "Who is that?"
Yoji could remember the gentle hands, a touch of the lips on his forehead and entwined hands. But that was all he could remember. "Maybe you will know someday."
A hearty pause.
"This is really stupid, have you noticed?" Detective Kudo laughed. "I'm talking to myself! Are you really me in the future? You don't know anything! You haven't answered anything specific since we started talking."
"I know what's going to happen."
The detective stopped laughing. Yoji said in a voice so soft that maybe he didn't want him to hear the following words.
"Tonight. She will die tonight."
"No."
"A bullet. They will find you, see."
"Shut up."
"And you won't be fast enough to save her." Yoji seemed to say this more to himself, as if he was taking all the blame on him rather than the detective.
"It won't happen. I can change it, you'll see. She won't die at all." This was said with conviction.
"How can you stop something that has already happened? You are a past."
"You are the ghost here! Look around. Do you see your future? Today is just today." Detective Kudo grabbed the mirror. "There is only Asuka."
A sound of broken glass and then, the mirror was shattered.
He knelt down, his hands over the shards. Unconsciously, he clamped one of the larger broken pieces.
"My hands are wounded after all."
There was a faint sound of broken glass and when Yoji looked at his hands, they were bleeding again.
But someone was cleaning them up for him. His vision was still blurred. Oblivious to his caretaker, he repeated his words. "There is only Asuka."
"You've been saying the same thing for almost an hour." That was Aya.
Yoji discovered that he was in his room, sitting up on his bed. But he couldn't quite place why he ended up here when he was already here.
"Maybe there is no point of asking you why you've locked yourself in here after the mission and kept on breaking your glasses."
Pieces of memories seemed to click in place. He was drugged but it was tolerable. Mission accomplished and he still got back in one piece. Breaking one of his glasses was an accident. But there was something in the sound that reminded him of something. And one glass was not enough.
"I broke my mirror before Asuka and I went out that night she died. I tried dissuading her…"
"Why not tonight?" Asuka demanded. "We're already here!"
Yoji looked at his hands. "I broke my mirror. An omen." He sounded lame, he knew.
"And let them get away?" she asked in disbelief. "Then stay here." She got out of the car and ran towards the dark alley.
He looked at her as she was swallowed by the darkness. He got out as well. "Shit."
"We got separated. I wasn't fast enough to sight to what direction she took."
"Shit." Yoji cursed again. And then, a glimpse of shadow. He followed it.
"...without realizing that it was our target that I was following.
"And right in front of me I saw..."
"Someone fired." Yoji realized.
"And it was her.
"Dead."
"If only I'd managed to get my gun that fast, the killer wouldn't have to go unharmed..."
Yoji cursed his slackness and the stupid bandages. The killer immediately left, not noticing his presence. He went to her side, picking her up. She stopped him.
"If only I got to the hospital..."
"Don't bother." Asuka whispered. "This is what I get for not listening."
'If only I was there faster then maybe..."
"...maybe I would have saved you." Yoji could feel the tears coming. "Asuka, I'm sorry!"
A finger on his lips. He could taste her blood.
And then the words that were meaningless today but might held importance tomorrow.
"Whatever happens, happens for a reason." Aya remarked. "So let go already." He was done with Yoji's hands.
Yoji turned sharply at his companion. "How could you just say that? How am I supposed to just do that when I know things could have been done otherwise?"
The first aid kit was closed and was placed on top of the drawer by the bedside. "That was that. Then was then. Today is just today." Aya leveled his amethyst eyes with Yoji's emerald ones. "But you still have tomorrow."
It was weird hearing those words from Aya. It was also weird hearing the same words again in a somehow similar circumstance. Everything was so weird that suddenly, it felt right.
That was that. Then was then. Today was today.
There was Asuka.
/And here is Aya./
He went closer and wrapped his arms around Aya's waist. And the tears did come. But he was smiling. There was a gentle pressure on his forehead and he was being lowered onto the bed.
When Yoji opened his eyes, he found Aya beside him, one of the redhead's arm thrown across his torso and their hands entwined. He knew there was something odd but couldn't quite place it. Turning his head, he smiled. Finally, he had realized it.
The window was already open.
end
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