MATCHING

It doesn’t matter what you are.

“Hey, we’re talking about going somewhere for the three-day weekend, you wanna come?”

I had just gotten used to living alone in Tokyo when my mother called to ask me this.

“On a trip?”

“Yes. Now, I know it might be difficult what with school and all, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask.”

Kimi Nishino. My parents put a lot of thought into my name, but it’s just plain. But with my diligence and commitment to my studies, now I’m a medical student at Kamii University in Tokyo.

“This upcoming three-day weekend … it might be tough, I have a paper to write,” Kimi said, looking at the schedule book in her hand. She was still in her first year, which meant that she hadn’t finished the classes she needed to take the national admissions test, because they lasted all year, but she had been accepted to the college. And since she’d signed up for enough classes to make your eyes water, she had a lot of papers to write. Even in her spare time she studied—her desire to be a doctor was that strong.

“Just as I suspected. I understand. We’ll bring you back something—you just keep at your studies.”

“I will. Sorry, mom. Tell everyone hi for me.”

I wonder if she really did anticipate that I’d say that. Both said, “Bye now,” at the same time and hung up.

“A trip …”

Kimi set her phone down on her desk and stretched. Now that she thought about it, her younger brother wasn’t planning to take college entrance exams next year. Everyone’s going traveling while they still can. Maybe I should go.

But I’ll have another chance someday.

Kimi returned to her paper.

“Morning, Kimi. Did you finish that paper?”

“She’s not like you, you know. Of course she did.”

The next day, when she went to the campus, some of the girls in her department called out to her. First was Shiraishi, a smiley girl who was always in full makeup. Next to her was Itose, a doctor’s daughter.

“Yeah, I finished it,” Kimi said, sitting down next to them.

“All you do is study, Kimi. Don’t you ever wanna hang out with us?” Shiraishi said, her eyes twinkling.

“Don’t listen to her, Kimi. She’s just trying to find someone to go on a blind group date with us.”

“Hey! Everybody’s really excited about it, and we don’t have enough people!”

Shiraishi looked like she’d been caught. Every time I see her she does this.

“But you don’t have a boyfriend, do you, Kimi? Nobody to hang out with, no smart and sexy college man … What are you doing for the three-day weekend? A boyfriend is a must-have for any college girl!”

I don’t have a boyfriend and I turned down a trip with my family. And I can’t imagine I’ll find someone on a group date, as plain a woman as I am.

“I’m sorry, I’m busy that day.”

“What? What are you doing?”

“Quit hounding her. God, you’re annoying,” said Itose.

“What about you, Itose? You wanna come?” Shiraishi said, changing tack. Her hands were clasped together.

“My sister’s bringing her fiancé, so I’m going to hang out with them.”

Itose’s sister was a nurse working in a university hospital, and her fiancé was apparently a doctor from work.

“Wow, is that what it’s like in a doctor’s family? I wanna man like that …”

“Then you should work on developing some character …”

“Don’t talk to me like that! I have tons of character! I’m full of it!”

“Just look up ‘character’ in the dictionary.”

Itose was seriously amused by Shiraishi as she scrambled to respond. Their exchange sounded like a comedy routine, and Kimi couldn’t help but laugh.

“Enough,” Shiraishi said, puffing out her cheeks exaggeratedly, and Itose started laughing too.

When their morning lecture was over, the three parted ways. Kimi bought her favorite pastry at the campus bakery and sat down on a bench outside. Kamii was a giant college with a big campus and lots of greenery. The soft light falling through the leaves of the trees was soothing to the eye.

College life is good. The only thing I don’t have is a boyfriend, like Shiraishi said.

Kimi had only had one boyfriend ever. When she was a freshman in high school, an older boy had told her how he felt and they had gone out. But the first date didn’t go so well, and things naturally fizzled out. And then nothing after that.

But she was satisfied with how things were now. She was getting closer to her classmates, and day by day she was getting used to living in the 20th Ward. It was full of excitement she couldn’t have found back home.

She took a big bite of her pastry and muttered, “So good,” to herself, her cheeks puffed out like a hamster. Couldn’t have found this back home either.

Just another normal day as a normal person. She imagined it would always be like this.

Until the moment when it all suddenly came to an end.

II

It was the first day of the three-day weekend. After staying up late working on her paper, Kimi didn’t wake up until the sun was already high in the sky. She checked the time on her phone. One o’clock.

She had an email from her brother. The subject was “Pictures,” and when she opened it she saw that he had attached tons of photos from their destination.

“Nice …”

A lush green lawn. Her mother, who wasn’t very good with technology, must have asked her brother to send the pictures to her.

“Thanks. Wish I was there,” Kimi replied to her brother. He replied right away.

“Wish you could’ve made the time to come.”

It seemed like he wasn’t having a good time on the trip with his parents. But the trip had just begun. They were still in the car.

“Tell dad to drive carefully,” she wrote.

“He says ‘gotcha,’ ” her brother wrote back, bringing the conversation to an end. Kimi got out of bed, fixed herself something to eat, and turned on the TV.

The first item on the news was about Ghouls. Some Ghouls had appeared in the 5th Ward and were trying to attack people.

Fortunately, a little kid had gotten suspicious and reported a Ghoul to the CCG, who caught him right away. They showed the boy, who had himself been attacked by a Ghoul before, and had managed to save a woman’s life this time. It was captioned “Elementary school student, hero.” The boy said, “I want to work at the CCG when I grow up.”

“Ghouls, yeesh …”

The 20th Ward was not as dangerous as some of the other wards, but it was still a concern for women living on their own, like Kimi. There were many things nobody knew about Ghouls, and many rumors about them too. Kimi wondered what they were like. Of course, they’re terrifying, and I don’t ever want to meet one, but I feel like there are things you can’t know about them unless you see them.

After that, she watched a talk show for a bit, then turned off the TV when she got tired of it. She took her dirty dishes to the sink and washed them, humming to herself. She had only a very loose plan for the day, and she was thinking about going to a restaurant she’d heard was nice when her phone rang.

“Coming!”

She dried off her hands and ran to her phone. It was one of her relatives, who lived in the same neighborhood as her parents.

“That’s odd,” she thought and answered the phone. What she heard ended all illusions of this being a normal day.

“Kimi! Are you there? Your family’s been in a car accident!”

Suddenly the ground shook and twisted beneath her.

They had been going down a narrow road with lots of sharp turns when they had a head-on collision with an oncoming car, and they had been transported to the emergency room.

That was all she knew. Without much more to go on, she went to an ATM and got out all the money she could, then hopped into a taxi. It would take at least two hours to get there, no matter how fast they went. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she couldn’t breathe. She felt dizzy.

She tried calling her family’s phones over and over again. She just wanted to hear their voices. But they didn’t answer, and her phone was starting to die. She looked again at the text conversation she’d had with her brother that morning. Everything had been normal then. Her fingers trembled with worry as she tapped out a message to him: “Where are you? Are you all right?”

“Please be all right …” She hoped and prayed, but no response came.

By the time she got to the hospital, the sun had already started to set. She jumped out of the car and ran into the hospital.

“Excuse me! My name is Nishino, Kimi Nishino! My family was in an accident …”

“Just a moment, please,” said the receptionist. Soon, someone who appeared to be a doctor arrived.

“Where are they? My mom, dad and brother?”

The doctor looked at her, a pained expression on her face.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Your parents died instantly. Your brother died on the way here …”

“What … what do you mean?”

He showed her to the morgue. When he opened the door, the cold air made the hair on her arms stand on end. There were three bodies lined up. I knew this was coming, but I wasn’t ready.

“This is your family, correct?”

The doctor’s words made her want to run away. The distance between her and the table was not far, but she felt like she was walking through mud to get there. It can’t be true, it can’t be true. She reached out and touched the first body, gently lifting the sheet to reveal her father’s face. He was covered in bandages. Kimi’s face crumpled.

Trying desperately not to collapse to the ground, she reached for the next sheet. Her mother’s face was far more damaged than her father’s. Kimi’s head ached, and she couldn’t think. Her knees began to shake. Now she stood in front of her brother’s body. She reached for the white sheet.

“It can’t be.”

There was her younger brother, wounded but looking as if he were asleep.

“It can’t be!”

Kimi grabbed her brother’s shoulder and started shaking it. She screamed again, trying to wake him. She screamed until her throat was sore. But he did not wake up.

Everyone. My mom, my dad, and my brother. My whole family.

“I want to wake up now!” she screamed.

All gone in an instant.

Her memory was vague after that. She spoke with the police and got her relatives to come, and then the wake and the funeral passed. The truck driver who had crashed into them had also died. Since everyone had died in the accident and there were few witnesses, it was difficult to determine the cause of the accident, but the police seemed to think both parties had been negligent.

A week after the funeral, Kimi returned to her apartment in the 20th Ward. Her relatives had told her to take a break from school for a while, but she couldn’t. “I have to go back to classes,” she said.

I told my mom when she asked me to go on the trip with them, ‘It might be tough, I have a paper to write.’ And what did my mom say? ‘You just keep at your studies.’

“I’m gonna be late for class … I gotta get to campus … Gotta write this paper …”

Kimi paced around her room, then spread her textbooks out on the table.

“What do I need to do? What should I be doing?”

But she couldn’t think. Every time she tried, her head began to hurt. She put her hands to her forehead and sat down.

But her eyes darted around the room, looking for her phone, not another textbook. She picked it up and opened her messages. She had read her brother’s messages so many times she had them memorized. And the picture of that magnificent scenery.

I bet they were smiling when they looked at that view. Saying they wished I was there.

Kimi felt hot and dizzy suddenly. And she just kept feeling hotter.

She heard her mother asking her if she wanted to go on a trip.

Her brother sending her a picture because she couldn’t be there.

Her father, whose response to being asked to drive carefully was, “Gotcha.”

And she would never see their faces again.

She covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t stop her tears from falling.

“I can’t … I can’t take it.”

They died. And they left me behind.

III

On her first day back at classes, she walked into the auditorium and saw Shiraishi and Itose. Shiraishi sounded as happy as ever, but today all she said was a very proper, “Good morning.”

“I saw what happened on TV. It’s terrible …” Itose said.

“Thanks,” said Kimi. It was all she could do to say it. Neither of the girls said anything else.

It had been a while since she’d been to class. She desperately tried to follow the professor’s words, or keep up with what he wrote on the blackboard. But nothing stuck in her mind.

Oh no, she muttered to herself when she looked down at her blank notebook page at the end of class.

Eventually she realized that she wasn’t going to be any good that day, and went home. On her way home, as she walked toward her house, she kept bumping into one person after another. And when she got home, she thought about her family and started to cry again. She couldn’t sleep that night, and before she realized it, it was morning again. Time for class.

She had no appetite but knew she had to have something in her system, so she forced herself to drink something and eat some gelatin, but nothing had any flavor to her. Not even her favorite pastry appealed to her anymore.

Her notebook was still blank. And time was passing quickly without her writing anything down. I can’t remember how I made it through life all this time.

Am I losing it?

She sat down on a bench on campus, a can of orange juice in her hand, and wondered about her own sanity. Even the light coming through the leaves of the trees hurt her eyes now.

Everyone in her department knew, and they were all giving her some distance. Her friends from home just watched because they didn’t know what to say.

She was alone in the world.

“I wish I’d gone with you …” Nobody could hear her, but Kimi whispered it out loud anyway. “I wish I’d gone with you …”

I wish I’d died with you …

Do I even need to come to classes anymore? Doctors save people’s lives, but I’ve already lost the people most important to me. So there’s nothing left for me to learn here.

I’m already dead anyway.

The moment I lost my family, my heart was torn apart and I died. All that’s left is an empty shell.

I want to see my dad. And my mom. And my brother. I want to see them all. It was the only thing she wanted, and her desire grew stronger by the second.

The can of orange juice, barely touched, fell out of her hand and hit the ground. The juice gushed out, going everywhere, and the mouth of the can was covered in dirt and grass.

Kimi picked up the empty can and sighed.

“I gotta pull myself together.”

She stood up from the bench and walked over to the vending machine to throw the can away. She put some coins in the machine and bought another juice. The can was dispensed with a thud. Kimi picked it up and headed off to her next lecture. She was annoyed as she climbed the stairs to the auditorium.

Somewhere in the distance she heard other students having fun. And I’m stuck here alone, feeling like I want to disappear.

“Hey,” someone said behind her. Surprised, she turned around reflexively and saw a man coming up the stairs behind her. He was slim and tall with glasses and a nice smile. Is he in my year?

“You forgot your change. In the vending machine,” he said, and showed her the change in his hand. I guess I forgot it when I bought the juice. And he brought it to me.

“Th-thank you,” she stuttered and took the change. Normally, the conversation would’ve ended here. But the boy had other ideas.

“Are you a freshman? What’s your name?”

Confused, she said, “Nishino.”

“Nishino? I’m Nishiki!” he laughed.

The only people who had talked to Kimi lately were people who knew that she had lost her family. She’d looked at so many concerned, caring, slightly troubled faces that his smile was utterly dazzling to her. She looked away, feeling slightly uncomfortable. I don’t want him to see me look upset.

He was so kind to bring me my change. But I don’t know how to be around people right now. I don’t want to bring him down.

But what he said next surprised her. “Ms. Nishino, can I have your phone number?”

“What?”

The word fell out of her mouth immediately.

“Let’s go out sometime.”

“Huh?”

Although she kept speaking nonsense, his eyes stayed fixed on her. Maybe he didn’t mean anything by it, but Kimi couldn’t understand why someone this attractive would want to go out with her.

“What’s your number?”

He got out his phone and took down her number. She still didn’t understand what was going on, but she got out her phone too.

“Nishiki, right?” she said as she entered his name.

He grinned in confirmation.

“Nishiki Nishio, but everyone calls me Nishiki.”

“All right, Nishiki.”

“I might be in touch tonight,” he said, waving as he left. Kimi was left standing there on her own, stuck to the spot. She wondered if she’d been daydreaming, but when she checked her contacts, she saw his number there and knew that it had really happened.

And that was how she met Nishiki.

That night when she got home, she set her phone on the table and stared at it.

“Maybe it was just a joke.”

Of course it was. What could a guy like that, who knew how to talk to women, want with a girl like her?

But just that little spark of something happening had reminded Kimi what real life was like. That she had once spoken to people like that on a daily basis.

But it didn’t take long for that spark to fade. She remembered her family again and threw herself down on top of her desk. Sadness welled up within her. I wish I could fall asleep and never wake up. I wish tomorrow would never come.

Suddenly she heard her phone buzz with a new message. She grabbed it to check and saw nishiki.

He really did get in touch. Still surprised, she opened the message.

“Hey. What are you up to?”

She looked at her textbooks. “I’m studying,” she wrote. An informative reply. Nervously, she hit send.

“Impressive,” he wrote. “By the way, what’s your major?”

“Medicine,” Kimi wrote. Soon enough another reply came from Nishiki.

“Amazing. I’m in pharma studies. Maybe we have some classes in common?”

That’s how their freewheeling, anything-goes conversation started. There was no pity or compassion in his words. He didn’t know anything about her loss, which was why Kimi could talk to him. Part of her was so relieved.

“We should study together tomorrow,” she wrote, finishing the conversation for the evening. “Night.”

I know it was all by text, but that’s the first time in a long time that I’ve had a real conversation. She felt exhausted all of a sudden, now that the tension of their conversation was broken. She was tired, yes, but she was also sleepy. Kimi rubbed her eyes and got into bed.

And she slept like a log.

IV

The next day, she was surprised when she woke to find her room flooded with sunlight.

“How long did I sleep?!”

She had an early class that day, but there was no way she was going to make it. She needed to start getting ready for her other classes, but she simply stood in front of her sink staring at her face in the mirror. She had slept solidly, but the accumulated exhaustion still showed on her face.

“Why did he talk to me?” Kimi muttered, pressing her hands to her pale cheeks. She finished her morning routine and left her house right on time.

“You came!”

“H-hello …”

When her lectures were over she went to the place where they’d agreed the previous night to meet. Nishiki was already there. She had only half-believed that he would show up, so when she saw him standing there waiting for her she looked at him incredulously.

“What’s up?”

“Oh, um, nothing,” she said, averting her eyes so as not to be rude.

“Ooh, you’re stubborn,” Nishiki said, and laughed. “You don’t have to be so polite, you know. What’s your first name again, is it Kimi? Can I call you Kimi?”

“Y-yes, you may.”

“Again with the formality.” Nishiki smiled.

“There’s a table over there,” she gestured.

They walked over to the table on the sunny terrace and sat down facing each other across the table. Nishiki took his books and supplies out of his bag. Kimi’s eyes widened. He didn’t seem like a serious person, but his books looked well-used.

“If I try to study alone I just blow it off, so watch me, all right?” he said, and started studying.

Kimi hurriedly got her books out too. She wasn’t sure what to study, but then she remembered all the gaps she had to fill in since the day of the accident, and she got to work.

While they were studying, Nishiki did not speak enough to disrupt them. I feel nervous every time he speaks, but I’m not uncomfortable.

They studied until the sun set and only said goodbye after making more plans.

“Why me?” The question wouldn’t go away. But part of her was starting to feel better.

They kept making plans to study. Eventually they started making plans to hang out. They spent more and more time together.

Nishiki had gotten a little more casual since they’d met. And Kimi could talk to him now without any hesitation.

Now she could hardly wait for tomorrow, when not that long ago she had wished it would never come again. When she was with Nishiki, her pain didn’t seem that bad anymore.

“I heard Kimi’s going out with Nishiki Nishio.”

She overheard someone gossiping about her as she sat on a bench on campus, waiting for Nishiki to come. She looked and saw Shiraishi and Itose walking side by side. Being the topic of conversation made Kimi feel awkward, so she hid behind a nearby tree. They took no notice and continued talking.

“Someone saw them together at a festival wearing kimonos. Everyone’s gossiping about them being a couple, but isn’t it obvious? Nishio doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to relationships, so how true can it be?”

“Nishio’s so hot, how is he going out with Kimi? Even if he’s just looking for a hookup there’s better options out there.”

She was shocked by the way they insulted her.

“Right?”

“I even invited you along to the group date thinking you’d make a good match with him, you know.”

“I don’t know about that.”

They still didn’t realize Kimi was listening, so they said everything they wanted to.

“She was so down after the accident, but lately she’s a lot better. Some girls just don’t care about anyone but themselves. But who cares? At least we don’t have to worry about her killing herself now. It’d look really bad if someone in our department killed themselves.”

The two of them passed by. Kimi was left there twisting her fingers around themselves nervously.

Kimi herself still wasn’t sure why Nishiki wanted to go out with her. She thought there were better options too. She was no stranger to harsh self-criticism.

But the last thing that Itose had said wouldn’t leave her mind.

Lately she’s a lot better. The words weighed heavily on her.

“Kimi, what are you doing?” Nishiki asked, head tilted. She was still leaning against the tree.

“Oh, nothing,” she said, looking up at him.

“Well, okay then. Do you have plans? Do you wanna come over to my place?”

“Sure,” she said.

Kimi walked beside him. Sunlight filtered through the trees along the path, falling at their feet, and each time the trees were rocked by the wind, the light wavered. It was so beautiful it made her smile.

“Nice weather today,” Nishiki said, looking up at the sky. Sharing my feelings with you makes me happy—and sad.

With him by my side, I can be positive as I deal with my painful memories. But I think about my family less and less. And it makes me feel heartless.

When they got to Nishiki’s house, Kimi took the pastries she’d bought on campus out of her bag and they had a light snack. Nishiki had also bought some bread at a convenience store.

Unlike Kimi, who loved to try all sorts of new things, Nishiki didn’t know much about food. He survived on simple meals—simple enough to make Kimi worry that he wasn’t getting enough vitamins.

Often the things he bought would end up expiring before he got around to eating them. Kimi had noticed food left in his refrigerator like an objet d’art time after time, which wasn’t like him in many other ways.

“I’m going to the bathroom.”

When he finished eating, Nishiki got up, put on some music, and went into the bathroom. She was sitting there listening to the music when he came back with a canned coffee in his hand. He always drank black coffee.

They kept talking for a while, but eventually Nishiki touched his hand to her cheek as if to stop her speaking. Kimi felt herself leaning into him.

I feel at ease when I’m with him.

She had often wondered why that might be. And the word that always came to mind was “boundaries.” Just as he set his own boundaries, he never tried to cross over Kimi’s impenetrable boundary—he had never asked about her family. He never spoke about his own family either.

Does he know not to go there? Or is it just a coincidence? Or—does he share the same pain?

When it was over, Nishiki took a sip of his coffee. Kimi looked up at him, wrapped in a blanket.

I want to be with him. But I can’t forgive myself for trying to move on.

After the accident I wished that I had died with my family. I don’t now.

Maybe if I had gone on the trip, my dad would’ve come to Tokyo to pick me up. He would’ve taken a different route. The timing would’ve been different. And my family wouldn’t have been there at that moment, at that place where the accident happened.

It was a series of what-ifs. But those what-ifs appealed to her. She wondered if her own choice not to go had led to her family’s death. So she could not forgive herself. Not ever …

“You have a nice name.” The words took her aback.

“Huh?”

She looked back up at Nishiki, who was fumbling for words.

“It means ‘precious future,’ doesn’t it?”

“My parents gave me one character each from their names. It wasn’t really supposed to have a meaning.” Before she would have easily explained.

But Nishiki’s words had shaken her to her core.

Precious future. What my mother and father gave to me.

Until this moment, when she had remembered her family, she had pictured them as they were in the morgue. But now she saw them as they had been when they were alive.

Her father was grinning, her mother was smiling kindly, and her brother looked slightly fed up, but they all smiled as they looked at Kimi. Their eyes said to her that they would always be there, and encouraged her to hurry up and move on.

On to the precious future that her name suggested.

“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

Kimi covered her face with her hands. “No,” she said. But she couldn’t stop crying.

All the guilt she was hanging on to, all the ways she’d been punishing herself, all of it slowly and quietly slipped away with her tears.

Thank you, Nishiki.

You saved my broken heart.

Thanks to you I’m still here, not lost forever. I want to be with you until you tell me to go away. No matter what happens, I want to be by your side.

This desire was the start of a painful pathway. But that made it no less colorful.

“Nishiki, you saved me … that’s why I’m still here.”

It’s all right, I’m alive.

It doesn’t matter who or what you are.

As long as you’re you, that’s fine with me.

A bridge between Ghouls and humanity.