❝RED❞

SEVEN

SEVEN

MAYBE SHE SHOULD'VE gone earlier to visit her mother. It felt a little rude to wait for so long before finally standing here, thought Akiko, before a gray marble slab with the autumn winds pushing her thick black hair behind her neck and creasing her clothes.

The earth beneath her was a little muddy and soggy from the previous night's rain. Today Red was dressed in a white collar shirt, skirt, and black combat boots. It wouldn't do, she'd reasoned, to dirty her usual business shoes.

There was a pensive, almost emotionless look on her face as she gazed down upon her mother's grave. Kogawa Japana, it read, 12/21/1965–05/12/2013. Loving sister, wife, and mother. And at the very bottom inscribed the quote, "To the moon, I toasted on the night of my death."

As ambiguous as it sounded it didn't really mean anything, Red understood. Just a filler for something her mother never had the time to think of.

The wind strengthened. Her hair whipped fiercely across her cheeks and into her eyes, and a flying leaf blew past her perspective. Akiko's black irises flitted back down to her mother's grave. She wondered what her quote on her grave should be.

One might've said the look in her eyes was slightly sad if there was anyone to see it. She realized, a little bitterly, that her mother not only had no time to think of her quote but need not ponder the question at her age in life.

—❝RED❞—

At Kogawa Japana's funeral, her daughter did not shed tears.

On Mother's Day of her only child's third year of high school, Kogawa Akiko legally lost her mother. In reality, she lost a mentor and advocate.

For the death of a nemesis, one usually would not weep. For a mentor, perhaps. And yet, it was the art of guarding one's true thoughts at heart that Japana had taught her apprentice first. As a result, it would've been impertinent if Akiko had cried. Suitably, she did not.

That day, cloudy as it was, was a very windy one. Gales howled in the stead of the girl who stood with almost an unperturbed face. They swept her hair in her face and blinded her from the procession as if punishing her for her lack of grief. Tears of leaves fluttered down from the heads of trees that bent and swayed to the rhythm of their chilly grief.

To her left, Akiko's father sat silently by her side. His face was almost a grimace, lips white as he squeezed them shut. His skin did not scrunch up around his brown eyes in grief, but tears ran silently down his cheeks. He grieved for someone he loved dearly, for a love cast aside to greed.

Ambition, her mother would have corrected her. It's ambition. And there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

In retrospect, it could be funny, decided Akiko. Her lips, bloodless from the cold, worked silently as she mouthed unvoiced words to her deceased mother. The wind picked up as if to carry the message to Japana.

Kageyama Tobio watched in the distance as the peculiar 'Miss Red' stood before a grave, possibly one of a family member or friend. The only identity the setter knew of the woman was Red. Not Kogawa Akiko. So it was strange to see her here. Like watching a woman descend the fire escape stairs of her apartment on a snowy day. It wasn't out of this world, no. But there are certain things, once happened, that will alter reality.

Her expression, observed Kageyama, was a blank one. No remorse, no grief, nothing. Like a blank slate. Something practical and pragmatic. He was a little curious. If it was all a facade, why continue it all the way out here?

The setter decided he shouldn't continue to lurk in the dark. He stepped out from beneath the shadows of the swaying willow trees, and almost immediately, Kogawa's head shot up to face where he stood. "Who are you?" her tone was sharp. Then, after a moment, she blinked in recognition. "Oh. Kageyama Tobio." She raised her chin. The chilly winds that exhaled autumn brushed her hair past her face. Her head dipped faintly in acknowledgment.

An amused smile curled around Kageyama's lips. "Red," he bowed deeply with respect. "I did not expect to find you here," his statement was honest and genuine.

Akiko's brown eyes might have been as hard and unforgiving as the winds were. "One wouldn't expect to find me anywhere."

The setter had to take a moment to process. When he parted his lips to argue, however, Red immediately cut in. "What are you doing here?" she flipped the topic. Now she was the one questioning him.

When questioned by Red in that fashion, one could hardly find the ability to carry on their previous conversations. Tobio was not an exception; Naturally, he followed the course of the waters.

"I came here to visit my grandfather," he explained. Twisting his head to face the east, he nodded toward a lonely little grave and a lonelier white lily that rest upon its gray slab. He turned back. "What about you?"

Akiko tilted her head down to face the grave before her. Both pairs of eyes flitted slowly side to side as they took in the words inscribed upon the slate. "My mother," she finally answered. Something in her brown irises softened as she spun her head around to meet Kageyama's dark blue. "I decided I've put off her visit for quite a while."

A dry smile lit up the man's features. "You don't come here often?"

"Do you see me here often?"

"Who says that I come here often?"

At this, Kogawa turned away to look up at the cloudy skies. It was a moment before she answered, in almost a dreamy, enigmatic fashion. "The wind tells me."

Kageyama was surprised. It wasn't Red he was speaking with right now. This girl was too... sentimental to be Red.

The faintest smile ghosted his lips. So this was Kogawa Akiko.

He tilted his head back to gaze up at the same scenic view. Waving tree branches decorated the corner of their visions. "What else does the wind tell you?" Kageyama asked. Fallen leaves blew past their respective perspectives.

Akiko smiled faintly. "It tells me things," it came out as a playful whisper. Like a teenage girl spilling a secret. "A little bit of everything."

Kageyama brushed his hair to the side. "Do you think it's just the wind? Or perhaps it's your mother?" he gestured to the grave.

Kogawa stilled. She did not move for several minutes, and Tobio was afraid he had touched a nerve. But his fear was distilled and morphed into something like sympathy as he watched a tear roll down Akiko's cheek.

She did not say anything. And yet, Kageyama Tobio understood all the same.

SEVEN