Someday out of the blue

Maybe years from now

Or tomorrow night

I’ll turn and I’ll see you

As if we always knew

Someday we would live again someday soon

–

Masato Sanjoin had been having a rough few months. Or at least, that was what his acquaintances had told him when he woke up one day in his apartment and realized that the calendar was several pages ahead than it should have been.

The doctor he went to attributed it to ‘stress’ or possibly a variant of the so-called ‘Juban Sleeping Sickness’ that had been going around. Masato didn’t know what the hell it was. He just knew he woke up one day and was missing nearly a year of his life that he couldn’t remember a shred of.

A year of his life that the people who knew him filled in with reports of increasingly erratic behavior.

About ten months ago his acquaintances told him that he’s started acting strange and aloof, even hostile. He avoided everyone, and they saw less and less of him.Three months ago Masato had apparently dropped out of school and practically vanished. Masato would have been worried about a tumor or a stroke if the doctor hadn’t very carefully ruled out both with a battery of tests.

Stress.

What kind of stress would cause you to black out for a ten month stretch and practically ruin your own life?

Thankfully, with the help of a lot of paperwork from his doctor, Masato was able to re-enroll in college and make up his studies without his distant father ever knowing he had dropped out. And thankfully that same foreign-living financial advisor father was the type who considered his son buying an expensive brand new ferrari as an understandable youthful expense not even worth looking at the credit card bills for.

So Masato slowly started picking up the pieces of his life, moving forward, and trying to put the strange missing months in the past. He tried not to wonder exactly what happened, or exactly what he’d been doing.

He started keeping a rather meticulous diary, just in case it happened again.

Not that he was at all sure that he could be expected to continue keeping a diary if he had another sudden blackout attack of Juban Asshole Disease and started being rude to everyone again.

But he tried to move on.

And he tried to mitigate his stress like the doctor had warned him to do.

Driving around his brand new, cherry red Ferrari Testarossa turned out to be an excellent method for relieving stress, and he thought if he had gotten one thing right in those missing months, it had been buying it.

One afternoon Masato suddenly realized that his aimless hour of driving had brought him to the small city center of Azabu Juban. And as his gaze fell on a little cafe on the corner called ‘Crown’, he felt an almost nauseating wave of deja vu.

Masato pulled over, parked, and got out of the car, clutching his diary under his elbow.

---

Naru Osaka sighed as she swished through the slowly melting ice in her soda, watching the people skitter this way and that around the familiar old haunt for girls in the Juban district. The Crown properties pretty much had every student from Middle to High School in their sway—and she was no exception.

That explained why she came here anyway, even when she was feeling so down. It wasn’t like she came with anyone, boyfriend or friend, and there was something a little lonely about sipping a soda all by yourself—but she didn’t know what else to do.

She didn’t want to go home yet, and Usagi– Usagi, wasn’t available right now. She’d been acting weirder and weirder lately—which Naru was certain for some stomach-lurching reason was connected to the weird and eerie phenomenon that had recently overtaken their hometown. It wasn’t quite the Juban Sleeping Disease, or something like it, but it was clear the two were somehow linked.

Naru had offered, emphatically, to help Usagi with anything she needed. Even if she was involved in something dangerous, Naru would fight for her friend—heck, even if it was something as simple as her test woes, she’d wanna be there for her! But Usagi had waved it off, leaving a prayer the only thing Naru could do for her.

It sucked. It made her feel useless when her friend clearly needed someone, but she’d never know if her prayers made a difference for whatever was plaguing the goofy rabbit-like Usagi.

The power of prayers at the shrine or no—it didn’t make her afternoon any more exciting. She was still sitting here alone like a loser and sipping a soda that was more melted ice than carbonation at this point.

The sliding door hissed open, and Naru heard someone walk in.

She couldn’t have said what caught her attention about the sound, or the movement. It was just the same sound as whenever anyone came into the parlor. The hiss of the door, and the soft flap of footsteps.

But something did catch her attention, and in the corner of her eye she saw the figure that walked in.

And before anything else, there was a sense of familiarity.

Naru’s heart nearly stopped as the familiarity washed over her, a warm blanket of it, cradled around something deep inside her—only for her head to catch up with her heart a moment later as her eyes flicked over his features.

That long, flowing hair, the shape of his jaw, the keen eyes, he was more than just passingly familiar—he was a ghost. The ghost of someone she’d clung to in his final moments—he couldn’t exist.

It couldn’t be him. Still, her straw fell from her lips, her eyes transfixed on him.

Masato Sanjoin–Nephrite– stood framed in the door as it closed behind him, sunglasses perched in his mane of hair, and a book of some kind tucked under one arm. He was dressed as he often had been, in a neat pair of slacks and slim cut silk shirt, partially unbuttoned.

But it couldn’t be him.

‘Masato Sanjoin’ had been revealed as a pretty piece of fiction created by a demon from another world called Nephrite. And Nephrite, despite all promises, had died in her arms.

She remembered clearly, even with the fatigue and exhaustion she often felt around that time, the feeling of him cradled in her arms as her tears fell upon the bloodied, otherworldly uniform he wore. She remembered the pain of the unfulfilled promise for something so silly in retrospect, but so important that it still haunted her dreams even now.

She realized she hadn’t been breathing, gasping suddenly as she placed her hand to her chest. It has to be someone who just looks like him—Nephrite is dead. Masato Sanjoin never existed.

The man, strangely, looked almost as disoriented as Naru felt, as he glanced around the room, uncertainty written on the tilt of his eyebrows and the soft part of his lips.

Every detail of him looked the same as the Masato Sanjoin that she remembered.

And as he finally shook his head and walked forward through the parlor, past her booth toward the counter, she could swear as he passed that she smelled his cologne.

She couldn’t catch herself in time to stop the quiet. “W-wait—” from escaping her lips, her hand raising towards him for only a second before she snapped it back to her lap.

He was a stranger—even demons from another world don’t just…come back to life. There was no way this was Masato Sanjoin.

The man turned at the sound of her voice, and the curious tilt of his head with his chin lifted was familiar too.

“I… yes?” His stormy blue-grey eyes met hers. He looked pale.

She had to figure out what to say—’hey, you remind me of the demon I fell in love with and died’ was absolutely insane. No way, no how, she’d be laughed off at best, and committed at worst.

Biting her lip she reached for instead. “Are you a-all right? You seem a little shaken up.”

He laughed softly, more of a worried huff of breath than a true laugh, but so, so familiar. So was his low, thick voice. “That obvious, am I?”

His gaze didn’t leave her own. His eyes. They were the same eyes, too.

Her heart skipped once more. Naru couldn’t help but stare deep into his eyes as she pushed her soda to the side. The same eyes—the same voice—could it be? It couldn’t, no matter how much she wished. But still…She chewed her lip as she nodded.

“Pretty obvious…” There was one way to know for sure. One way—- “can I buy you a chocolate parfait? To ah…help you relax, I mean?”

The man’s brow furrowed deeply at that, and his stormy eyes seemed to go unfocused for a moment. His grip tightened on his book.

“I- I’m sorry, miss. Do I know you from somewhere?”

Naru laughed weakly into her hand.

“I’m trying to figure that out myself…you look just like someone I knew recently.” She hesitated before she continued, her eyes flicking down so she didn’t have to look him in the eyes when she murmured. “a man who went by Masato Sanjoin.”

Eyes downcast, she only heard his sharp intake of breath before his answer.

“Well. That’s my name. Maybe we should have that… what did you say?”

The whole world had narrowed inwards—her breath shuddering as she felt herself go a little pale. “Sanjoin…I ah. I offered a–”

Sanjoin! Masato Sanjoin! Despite how impossible it was for Nephrite to come back, how possible could it be for a man to not only look so much like him—but have the same name?? Naru felt dizzy, like the whole world was spinning and only this moment was keeping her tethered to the ground. “–A chocolate parfait. To share.” She said again.

“Oh.”

‘Masato Sanjoin’ suddenly looked as dizzy as she felt, and she watched him shudder, falling forward and catching himself on the edge of her table, hair falling into his face.

“Nephri—” she cut herself off as she lurched forward to grab his arm “Sanjoin??” Concern hammered in her chest, her eyes flicking around for anyone who could help outside of their little bubble. “Please, please just sit down!”

His sea-stormy eyes met hers again.

“Naru?”

And then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went limp.

With that, all doubts crumbled—no matter how impossible it seemed. As he went limp, barely caught in her arms as he fell to the table, she cried for someone to call the hospital. Memories of that moment in the woods where she’d lost him the first time plagued her until the moment the ambulance arrived—and she insisted on coming along.

This was really him—Nephrite, somehow born back into this world—and she wasn’t about to leave him all alone.

---

Naru wasn’t allowed into the ER with Nephrite—stuck waiting in the waiting room for almost an hour. Her nerves were like alarm bells, or the constant sirens she’d hear pulling up to the vehicle bays somewhere just outside—he’d remembered her.

Just for a moment before he passed out, he’d said her name. She couldn’t sit still—so she’d used her phone card at the pay phone. First, her mother, telling her she’d be a little late tonight—and then her finger hovered over the numbers for Usagi’s house.

Usagi…Usagi was so busy lately, would she even be there? She dialed the number, only to reach Usagi’s mother instead of her best friend. Leaving a message that she had to talk to her ASAP about something important, and that she’d try again later. She hung up feeling more pent up with nervous energy than she started.

“I hope he’ll be alright…”

Finally, after it felt like her stomach had knotted itself all the way up to the back of her tongue, a nurse came out to speak with her.

“Miss Osaka? Mr. Sanjoin is awake, and asked to speak with you.”

With a nod of her head, she pushed herself up and out of her seat to hurry over. “He did? P-please, ma’am. Please lead the way.”

The room was pale and quiet, aside from the soft beep of a heart monitor keeping regular time.Laying in a cot in the pale afternoon sunlight from the window was Masato Sanjoin, now stripped of his slack and silk shirt, and instead in a hospital gown.

Naru lingered in the doorway for a moment, just watching him. It was a brief, brief time—several moments in that time involved him using her for various ends, leaving her drained and exhausted for days. But even if it was short. Even if he’d been a demon preying on her energy and the energy of others, she couldn’t deny the strong feeling of connection she had with Nephrite.

The bond beyond anything she understood. She swallowed, and stepped slowly inside the room. “Sanjoin…?”

The nurse closed the door behind them, leaving them alone.

Masato Sanjoin was looking away from her, out the window into the golden afternoon.

“I feel like I’m having one of those dreams where you keep waking up into another layer of the dream.”

Naru chuckled quietly as she walked slowly towards the side of his bed, her school loafers softly scuffing against the ground. “F-funny, I kind of feel the same way.”

He turned to look at her as she approached. “Do you? Last year I lost ten months of my life. Amnesia. The doctor said it was stress.”

Amnesia—so he couldn’t remember anything from the last ten months? But he’d known her name—he’d called her by her name right before he passed out!

“Stress—w-well. There was a bit of an epidemic of energy loss lately, that’s enough to get anyone a little stressed.”

She chewed on her knuckle, looking at the curve of his jaw—the shape of his face once again as he sat illuminated by the light coming in from the window. “I …I haven’t lost any of my memories, but I do remember things a lot of people wouldn’t think are true.”

“Is that so? Then tell me. Have we really met before?”

His stormy eyes were intense, fixed on her without blinking. Yearning for something. Demanding an answer. Confused, but unafraid.

Naru nodded slowly. “We have, Sanjoin.”

She let herself move closer despite the way her heart fluttered and her hands trembled. “Not for very long—but it changed my life forever.”

He snorted, and glanced away again. “I should probably apologize then. I’ve been told I wasn’t a very nice person during those missing months.”

Naru rested her hand on the hospital bed’s frame.

“You were nice to me—even if I know you started out trying to use me. You were always very…kind…and charming to me.” She hesitated, before she murmured. “You called yourself Nephrite—a demon here to steal humanity’s energy for some dark purpose.”

He exhaled a long stream of breath through his nose as he looked up at the ceiling.”I was afraid you were going to say that. That’s what I was dreaming about before they brought me around.”

“So you really do remember it?” She asked quietly, her fingers winding around the cold metal of the bedframe’s post. “I remember holding you in my arms…even after all the schemes to destroy my friends, or my way of life—I could tell you were a good person underneath it all.”

He put his hand on top of her hand, and it was warm.

“I should believe it was a dream,” he said quietly. “I’d want to believe it was a dream, except that you’re here.”

Finally he looked back at her. His strong, fierce features were soft again, like when he’d looked at her that night.

Naru felt her face flushing, and her smile soft as his in return. She moved until she sat on the edge of the bed.

“I didn’t believe it was possible at first—but when you said my name, I knew it had to be.” She swallowed, her eyes suddenly stinging as her voice quivered and something warm leaked down her cheek. “I know a lot of what you remember’s gotta be real hard to face, Sanjoin—but I’m glad you remember me. M-maybe I can help you.”

“If anyone can help me, it has to be you, Naru.” She watched him swallow and take another breath. He made a valiant attempt at a smile in return. “I’m sorry I botched our shot at a parfait by passing out.”

“Well…you’re not dead anymore—s-somehow. Not that I’m complaining!” she was crying, wasn’t she? Even if her smile was wide, soft and warm, she was crying. “We can always have that parfait as soon as you’re up and about?”

HIs hand shifted on hers, and he reached up, and wiped the tears away with the back of his fingers.

“I guess I’m not dead, that’s true. Actually, they’re already discharging me, I’m just waiting for the paperwork.” That soft smile came back. “So I guess we could do anything we wanted.”

He was alive—he was him, and he wasn’t on some mad evil quest to destroy the world she loved so much either. Naru leaned closer to him. “…I did tell my mom I’d be home late—and Usagi’s not gonna be expectin’ my call for a while anyway…”

His hand lingered on her cheek. Nephrite. Masato. Whoever he really was.

“Will you forgive me,” he asked, “if I don’t remember everything? It’s hazy. Like a dream… But I remember you, Naru.”

Naru’s heart pattered once more, and she leaned into his touch with a nod of her head.

“Of course—of course I’ll forgive you! Even if you never remember everything—I’m just glad you haven’t forgotten me.” She looked up to meet his eyes with a smile. “and even if you do wind up remembering everything—it won’t change the feelings I have about you…Sanjoin.”

His thumb traced her jaw. “You can call me Masato. Or even Nephrite, if you must.”

Naru shivered—a happy, warm kind of shiver that drew her in closer. That blanket of familiarity was once more hugging every inch of her as she smiled. “Masato—it’s a real handsome name…”

His own smile ticked a little wider at one edge and he laughed softly again. “You’re too kind to me, Naru, I–”

The door clicked open behind them. “Mr. Sanjoin, I have your paperwork.

---

The taxi ride back to Crown Parlor was short, and quiet. Masato’s fingers lingered on hers, but he didn’t say much. Probably it was too awkward to talk much when other people could hear. The nurse’s arrival at the hospital had stopped their conversation flat.

She’d practically fallen off the bedside when she first came in, flushing madly and sputtering while Masato finished up his paperwork. And now…now they were in the back of a taxi, hand in hand.

What could they say that wouldn’t get a side eye from people who didn’t understand? None of the burning questions on her mind could be answered in public—and few of them could be answered at all with the way his memory was.

So she just contented herself with sitting as close as the backseat would allow as they headed back to Crown.

“Oh! You’re back!” That was the greeting from the cheerful waitress as they came back into the parlor. She waved at them. “Glad you’re alright! I noticed you left something behind!”

Naru waved back at her—she was Motoki, the game center boy’s younger sister wasn’t she? Naru had always enjoyed her energy every time she came to Crown. Still—she blinked in surprise. “We did?”

“Ah. My journal.” Masato looked embarrassed, his mouth wrinkling as the girl held it up. “Thank you for holding it for me.”

“Oh!” Naru had been so struck and distracted by the fact Nephrite had come back to life that she’d completely forgotten she’d seen him holding it—was he using it to try and keep track of things? His memories? “…your journal, Masato?”

He nodded, taking it back from the waitress. “Just something I’ve been using to jot things down the last couple of months.”

He said he hadn’t remembered much, a period of amnesia before he awoke again after his ‘death’—

“So you don’t forget things..that’s a good idea.” To save face in public, she flashed him a bright smile “that’s why I keep a diary, myself—well…that and to jot down my deepest secrets.”

The waitress giggled. “Oh who doesn’t? Don’t worry, I didn’t peek though. Please, you two, have a seat! I’d better get back to tables.”

Masato just smiled, tucking his book under his shoulder again. He gestured for Naru to sit– back in the same booth she’d been in before he walked in. Now, the last rays of the evening sun were low in the sky..

Naru settled into the booth, leaning on both hands to stare up at him with a small smile.

“You know—it’s a little more romantic here late in the day. When everyone else is headed home—you know?”

“You think so? Well, maybe I’m glad I fainted, then.” He sat down opposite her. “It’s certainly quieter.”

Naru laughed.

“Most of my classmates are headed back by now—or off at the Crown Game Center like Usagi these days.” It was just them and the few patrons left this time of night—illuminated by fluorescent light, sitting in the quiet of a shared secret. “It means we’ve practically got the place to ourselves.”

“Admittedly, that’s the way I like it. I wouldn’t be thrilled to have someone eavesdropping on us.”

He laid his hand on the table, across to her side.

Naru laid her fingers delicately against his, smiling a little despite herself. “No—I wouldn’t be thrilled either. Not when we’ve got such strange things to say, Masato.”

He shook his head, his fingers warm under hers. “And I don’t even know where to start.”

“I…I imagine you don’t remember how you came back,” Naru murmured. “…you’d died, but now you’re right here with me—and you’re back to being Masato. That’s the way it was, right? You said people noticed you acting strange…that means you weren’t always ‘Nephrite’, right?”

Her fingers curled against his , squeezing his hand tightly—reminding herself as often as she could that he wasn’t some vivid hallucination.

Masato’s fingers curled around hers, and he rubbed his temple with his free hand. “I… I honestly have no idea. I just woke up in my apartment one morning and couldn’t remember the past few months. And now I remember dying? I’m pretty sure I was still Masato before I was Nephrite…”

His gravelly voice was low, and he spoke carefully, but his confusion was obvious, even so.

“Geeze…” She leaned on the table as she chewed her lip, her thumb making little circles against his finger. “If you were Masato before you were Nephrite—and it sounds like you have people who remember that being the case—then Nephrite…he was still part of you, right?”

Masato glanced around, checking once again that no one was near them, his fingers tightening on hers before he answered.

“Nephrite was me, I know that much. Queen Beryl– the ruler of the organization I was a part of– she awakened powers in me, and a memory of a time a thousand years ago, when I gave up my humanity and became a demon and–” He broke off abruptly and glanced away. “I sound completely insane. I don’t even believe myself.”

“No!!” Naru leaned forward suddenly and gripped his hand all the more firmly. He didn’t sound insane—even if she knew that logically yeah, he might have been. That wasn’t the sort of thing that happened to most people, right?

But at the same time, it resonated with her in a way that made her all the more willing to believe

“I believe you, Masato…I mean, reawakening to a long forgotten self, understanding who you used to be….it’s romantic, even with everything. Even if this Beryl reawoke that demonic part of you…it’s still romantic.”

Part of her yearned for an ‘awakening’ like that herself.

He gripped her hand in return, and his gaze found hers again. For a moment, he fumbled to answer, and then he stopped as they both heard the clack of the waitress’ heels.

Naru fell quiet as the waitress approached, contenting herself with looking into his eyes. “…are you excited for a parfait?” she finally asked with a half smile “I’ve been waiting a while for it…”

She watched his throat bob as he swallowed, and nodded. “It came to mind right away.”

The waitress came back, all smiles like usual, and Naru placed the order for a chocolate parfait—one to share, just like she’d promised. The way Unazuki winked at her as she sauntered away made Naru start to flush all over again—she was silently ‘wishing her luck’ with the handsome older man.

Once she was gone, Naru squirmed in her seat with a smile. “It did, huh? Is that why you…you came in to begin with? You seemed kinda dazed.”

“I was just driving around the area, when I saw the parlor and I got this intense wave of deja vu,” he explained quietly. “I thought it might be related to my missing memories, and I guess I was right…”

“I guess you were…” She giggled into her hand. “You know, I’m actually pretty glad I was just wasting my afternoon in here instead of, I dunno–going home like I’d thought I should do.”

She twined her fingers with his, her breath hitching in her chest as she smiled “it meant I got to help you remember some of it…and it meant I got to meet you again, Masato.”

“I guess it was written in the stars,” he murmured, his soft smile peeking through again.

“Written in the…” Naru’s lips parted into a wide smile as she laughed. “you know—it might be. Hidden in some constellation somewhere—the story of Masato and Naru.”

“It’s had a lot of twists and turns. I don’t know that it’s done throwing either of us for a loop…”

Naru pushed a lock of her curling hair away from her face and over her ear with a sheepish chuckle.

“Probably not—I mean, I fell in love with you when you were a demon running around Jubon turning people into jerk versions of themselves. No matter what I don’t think this…this connection of ours…”

Would he see it as a relationship? Would he be interested in it? Suddenly she was getting flustered—her heartbeat quickening. “Isn’t going to be simple, we’ve probably got a few more surprises sneaking up.”

In an effort to shake off her nerves, she joked. “But I promise, one of the surprises isn’t that I’m secretly Sailor Moon. No matter what you thought that one time!”

He laughed softly and pushed a lock of hair out of his face. Once again, he seemed about to answer when the waitress interrupted them, and slid the parfait onto their table.

“It’s on the house. It seems like you’ve been through a lot, today.”

“You’re the best, Unazuki! Thank you!” Naru chirped, before picking up one of the spoons. “here’s to promises, Masato!”

He raised his spoon with her. “Here’s to promises, Naru.”