#aster is asking the train man out on a date and he’s LOSING IT

[astererer]

i commissioned @peachsodama to draw aster and ingo together and aaaaa i’m so happy they look so cute hehehe

[baesketballers]

紫苑 shion

remembrance ft. Kiyoshi Teppei

Warnings: unresearched medical conditions. Other than that I don’t know about this anymore, I’m sorry if I failed any of you who were looking forward to this (｡-人-｡)

He enters the room, panting and sweating with his phone still clutched in his hand. The two nurses look at him with shock in their eyes at his unexpected entrance, but he can care less of what those two think—his eyes dart to find your parents, worry apparent on their faces as they sit beside your bed. He sees you and his breath hitches when he sees the number of bandages wrapped around different parts of your body. There is not much on your limbs, but a prominent white stripe circles the crown of your head.

Your parents send him glances that are nothing less than pitiful.

Your eyes meet his, and he can see that you’re confused. Slightly scared, even. And that’s when he knows something is not right.

“Mom, Dad,” you say softly, “who is he?”

It is as if the floor has disappeared beneath Kiyoshi’s feet.

It all began with a wet patch on the stairs that you did not spot, causing you to slip down the steps in the most painful way possible. The things you were carrying did not help break your fall, but instead made it worse. Fortunately, some of your neighbors were there to call for help, as they were walking not far behind from you down the stairs. It can be categorized as nothing but unlucky, but the results were dreadful.

The doctor said that it is almost certain to be temporary—your memory loss, that is. After your body has proper rest, you should be able to remember everything. The peculiar thing is that only memories of him are lost: your relationship with Kiyoshi that dates far back into your childhood days seems impossible for him to forget, but you’ve somehow lost it.

That night he couldn’t sleep properly as his head is filled with whispers of doubt and fear. Why is it only memories about him that are lost, and not of anyone else? How long will it take for you to recover? Will you remember again? What if you won’t? Will you still grow to love him, or does he have to call the engagement off forever?

Kiyoshi glances at the ring on his left hand before sighing into the night.

When you wake up the next day, there are purple asters arranged in a beautiful bouquet on the nightstand. You think it’s just remnants of your dreams, but there are fuzzy images that flash before your waking eyes even as you hold the flowers in your hands, stroking the aster petals. There are pictures of a café with white interior, a moving train, and a certain scent that you cannot describe with your tongue. You feel a bit dizzy and you blame it on the fact that your head is not right, and you try to rub your eyes as if it would help.

There’s a sound of a door creaking, and a female nurse enters with a tray of food in hand.

“Good morning,” she says. “Oh, a gentleman left those earlier today. I believe he’s gone down to the cafeteria to get breakfast.” With that, she gently picks up the bouquet and arranges it into a glass vase after placing the tray on your lap. “I hope you like bacon and eggs.”

“Thank you,” you reply after concluding that she’s a chatty one—perhaps they assigned a young, cheerful nurse like her to help speed up your mental recovery? You realize that the sudden entrance of the nurse has chased away the visions after you wake, and suddenly regret their disappearance. What if they’re more than leftovers of your dreams? It’s possible that those images are in fact part of the memories that you lost…

“The gentleman,” you begin, poking at your sunny side-up with hesitance, “is he young, with brown hair?”

“Yes, he is,” she replies, standing by your bed. “He looks like he’s coming back soon. Don’t worry,” she continues with a smile. “After you finish your meal, make sure that you take these,” the nurse gestures to a couple of pills sitting neatly on a small saucer.

You nod mutely, chewing on your food while still lost in the haze of just waking up. Somehow the smell of breakfast manages to tempt you into eating—this can’t be hospital food. You haven’t been admitted for a long time, but regardless, hospital food usually tastes bland.

“Call me if you need anything,” she says, addressing the phone glued to the wall just within your arm’s reach. “I’m Suzuki, by the way.”

You offer her your own last name, but immediately feel ridiculous because she surely knows your name by now. The nurse kindly ignores the flush of embarrassment on your face with a simple knowing smile and takes her leave.

Minutes later, just before your breakfast is finished, Kiyoshi Teppei enters the room.

He’s more than a decent man, you quickly find out, and you tell yourself mentally that you’re a lucky one to be engaged with him. Thinking about engagement and what it entails in the near future (you learnt from your parents that you are supposed to be wed in four months time) only makes you uneasy, so you try and put the thought away.

Kiyoshi makes it very easy for you to forget that you’re supposed to marry him, but it doesn’t get easier remembering your relationship with him, as enjoyable as his company is. You apologize to him multiple times about forgetting and you tell him that you have no idea why it is only him you forget about, only to have him smile gently at you in return. It really is not fair, you think—how can he be so kind at you even at the kind of state you accidentally put him in?

“We used to go to a café together for our regular dates,” he answers when you told him about the dream-like memory. “I’ll bring you there once you’re discharged,” he continues, “which would be soon, I think.” Kiyoshi sends you another kind smile, one which you return.

“I’m already looking forward to it,” you reply.

The afternoon is easily spent with him telling you stories about what the two of you liked to do, the places you liked to go, all the things of which you feel familiar with, yet cannot place a finger on. Despite his status as your fiancé, Kiyoshi tries his best to refrain from touching you—you might be the love of his life, but to you, he is a complete stranger. The thought of it in itself creates tension in his chest and he has slight trouble breathing whenever he thinks about it, but Kiyoshi brushes it off. This storm shall pass. It better. He wouldn’t know what to do otherwise.

Two weeks pass, and the number of your episodes increase even after your release from the hospital four days after your admittance. You’ve already three occasions during which there is an immense pain in your head, one that causes you to feel faint and your sight to waver, followed by flashes of images and movie-like sequences—as if your life right now doesn’t already resemble a movie. Most of them were seemingly random sceneries and objects: a hilltop view, a quilt, floral porcelain plates.

After each of them, you’d wake up finding a bouquet of asters beside your bed.

When you tell Kiyoshi about them during his regular visits to your house, however, it all had something to do with your relationship. He would walk you around the house or take you out to the places you’ve seen so far.

“This place is where I proposed to you,” he said when he brought you to the hilltop last week on a sunny day, a somber smile on his face as he glances down to the ring on your finger—you still wore it despite not having your memory recovered. “Do you remember anything?”

“Faintly,” you murmured. “It was in the evening, wasn’t it? I remember it was hot…”

“Yes,” Kiyoshi confirmed, “it was.” He looked over to you to see if you remembered anything more, but when you looked back at him with a sigh and a shake of your head, he could only pull you into a comforting hug.

“It’s okay.”

The time when Kiyoshi brought over the quilt you saw, which was around three days ago, was the first time you’ve seen him blush as pink as he did. When you asked him what’s wrong, he seems perturbed and embarrassed at the same time, his eyes slightly shifty.

“Well, um,” you could see he was biting his inner cheek before he spoke, “we… slept together under this quilt.”

It was your turn to blush. The two of you looked like you were ten years younger, like shy teenagers that had their faces set on fire just by the thought of sex. You didn’t know what came over you, but you reached out to hold his hand in yours. Kiyoshi looked at you with nothing else but longing in his eyes, so much that it was visible to you. He moved a hand to cup your cheek, looking deep into your eyes even as he moves in closer.

You didn’t reject.

There was an inexplicable sadness in the kiss, but mostly he was telling you he misses you with the way he touched his lips against yours. You sighed out his name—“Teppei…”—and he realized he misses the way you call out for him, too. Larger hands began to roam under clothing, exploring the skin that he remembers so well yet he hasn’t touched for so long. He pulled you closer.

Despite your hands on his chest, you did not push him back.

You are in the kitchen with him today, watching as he rummages the kitchen cabinet for something. A few moments later he turns back to you to place a blue porcelain plate adorned with flowers around its rim and center. You recognize it as the one you saw, waiting for an explanation as Kiyoshi drags a chair for him to sit on.

“An engagement gift,” he says, “from your parents.”

A pang hit your chest at his words. The engagement, which ultimately leads to the wedding. You can’t even begin to fathom how everyone involved is feeling right now—especially him. How it feels to have your soon-to-be life partner lose memory of every piece of your relationship. Flowers have to be cancelled, bought attire returned or resold to someone else, gifts donated, rings… heaven knows what to do with the rings—they probably mean to much for him to sell, but the pain they can cause if he keeps them is sure to be deep.

All that will most likely happen if you don’t remember forever.

“Did you postpone it?” You ask quietly, hesitance dripping with each syllable. “The wedding, I mean.”

The atmosphere is noticeably heavier. It takes him a few seconds to respond to your question with a simple nod. You look at him, an unreadable expression on both your faces before you sigh.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” your voice comes out shakier than you expect it, and you swallow. “I don’t know why, it keeps showing up, but… I only can—it’s hard to explain—”

He takes your hand in his, the other lovingly stroking your shoulder as he leans your head against his shoulder. You look frustrated, on the edge of tears, and he can’t help make it better except for murmurs of “it’s okay” and gentle pats on your back.

“I love you,” you say with bated breath, “even if I don’t remember, I love you. I think you should know that,” you continue with an exhale, “I think you already know that.”

“I know that,” Kiyoshi whispers near your ear, and you can feel the deep rumbling in his chest. “I still love you, too.”

Therapy sessions and pill consumption remain continuous, and so do his visitations, the aster bouquet, and odd flashbacks. Two months after your discharge, you wake up with a start, face pale and light sweat coating your skin as if you have seen a spirit. You can hear your blood pumping in your ear, your heartbeat way faster than you are used to, and a mix of adrenaline and hard cold realization runs throughout your body with each pump of the organ. Your head feels heavy, unnaturally so to the point where you’re not sure if it’s a beginning of a headache or just an effect of drowsiness. Your vision seems as if the whole room is dotted with black ants, but that’s just because of you jolting upright on your bed.

Light nausea enters your mouth and you quickly reach the bottle of water on your nightstand to take three big gulps.

After your sight returns from its previously wobbly state, you begin to recall the episode—except it wasn’t one, it was everything.

When Kiyoshi opens the door after knocking three times, he sees the look on your face and he knows. He had a gut feeling, but don’t ask him how he’s able to decipher so complicated a matter with just a gaze in your eyes. Your breaths are shaky, and so is your voice as you whisper his name, as if it is something so sacred, so pure.

“Teppei—”

He crosses the distance from the doorway to your bed in several wide strides, engulfing you in his arms. His warmth calms you and it finally feels like home again. All thoughts leave your head except for his presence in front of you—he’s never left you even once during everything, but you realize how easy it is for you to lose him even with him right in front of you. So you hug him back, holding him tight because you’re scared that he might slip away, like sand between your fingers. He leaves kind strokes on your head like calming down a child awaken from nightmare, and your chest feels so full that it could burst any second.

Kiyoshi takes your shoulders in his hands and pulls away to look at you, examining your face.

“Do you—are you—”

You can only nod.

“You asked me if I liked the idea of a family,” you begin quietly, “on that hilltop. I said ‘yes, of course’ and you said ‘me too’. We were sitting on the bench there, and you suddenly went down on one knee. I kind of saw it coming, but I still couldn’t believe it was happening when you told me you wanted to build one—a family—with me.”

Despite him famously known as Iron Heart, you see Kiyoshi’s face vulnerable, as if he could break down into tears any second. You caress his cheek, but you know that alone is not enough to soothe the pain he’s been enduring while you’re busy trying to remember.

“And, and then…” You trail off, “I remember I could only nod, because my eyes were already wet,” the rest of the sentence comes out as a half-sob half-chuckle. Your eyes are already wet now, too. “I can never forget what you said next.”

He looks at you. He wants to hear it from your own lips.

“‘Then I hope you’ll wear this ring, so I can marry you and we can have our own family.’”

Kiyoshi calls out your name, and his words continue from where you left off. It is a reiteration of the scene you were recalling, but also a simple question he is asking again:

“Will you marry me?”

“____________, the florist called. Said you’re changing into asters instead?” Your mother asks from the kitchen. You’re setting up the plates for dinner and quickly jogs to the kitchen.

“I don’t remember asking them to change,” you answer, a plate in your hand as you watch her chop up vegetables. “Though asters are quite nice.”

“That would be my doing,” a deep voice suddenly says from behind you. The plate in your hand nearly drop to the floor from your surprised jerk, but when you turn around to see only Kiyoshi, you sigh immediately.

“You scared me to death,” you say, slightly interrupted by the kiss he plants on your lips.

“Hello to you too,” Kiyoshi replies teasingly, before moving on to greet your mother with an easy smile. “I hope you don’t mind me changing into asters,” he says to address the matter you were discussing, “I think it will look great.”

“Well, I think so too,” you agree, walking to back to the dining room to put the plate in its place with him in tow, “but why asters? I’ve always been wondering,” you ask.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean you used to give them to me, right? When I lost my memory.”

“Ah,” he says, “you want to know why?”

You nod, curious.

“In the language of flowers, asters mean remembrance,” he begins. “I wanted you to remember, that’s why I gave them to you every day. In hopes that you’ll recover your memories of us soon.”

Your lips turn up into a smile.

“After hearing you say that, I don’t think I’m able to forget anymore.”

“Is that so,” he replies, stroking your hair. You laugh.

“Even if I were to lose my memory again, all you have to do is show those asters to me,” you say, cupping his cheek, “and then I’ll remember again.”

Kiyoshi’s nose brushes against yours.

“Let’s not have you lose your memory again,” he says before kissing you.