In the present, his friends were jostling about with Claire having said that they brought a visitor who desperately wished to meet Kage. There were some hurried assurances out in the hall for seconds later the door was blocked by a young girl.
Her hair curled while the initial rags she wore that night were removed in place of a violet skirt and matching top. In the dark, she appeared as a student in elementary school but now out in the open her height had deceived him and she was undoubtedly older by a couple of years. Evident from her attire, someone amongst the group had brought her shopping as well as supplied her with necessary amenities to look clean today. Pretty her up, unlike a rat, in order to meet him. Her savior.
To Kage, these were wasted efforts. A naturalness could no longer be observed in her current state. A thick helping of makeup only deterred reading between the lines of a child's face to understand their thoughts. It was a doll constructed to deceive him. However, the girl made things easy with her left foot half a step back, drilling into the floor. Hands wrung together and pupils darted to the minuscule scrapes on the tiled floor of the atrium.
A much older woman, possibly in her fifties, stood at the doorway watching her daughter. Kage did not remember if she had been there as well in that bunker, if she had her fidgeting gave credence that someone else would have taken that blade before he could. It was an abnormal occurrence for him to witness the approach of a loving parent. A concept near foreign to his dignified state.
Claire coaxed the girl to the side of the bed where Kage now sat, legs dangling off the side. Too shy to speak, the girl did not until they had all left except for her mother and Claire. His friend leaned against a wall by the mother exchanging a conversation so as their pressure was not placed onto the child.
It was this scenario that lightened the atmosphere in the room so that Kage could speak to the girl. "You're the one from that night, right?"
She nodded her head frivolously.
"What's your name?"
In a voice that was meek, flowing together with the gentle breeze and mildew of a morning's sun, she said, "Melody."
An unconscious smile touched his lips. "Well, Melody. My name is Kage, it's nice to see you again." He held out a hand and it was quickly taken by both of the girl's producing a small chuckle from him. She held for dear life to the hand as it was shaken up and down not knowing when to stop.
Kage eventually withdrew his hand placing another in her hair patting the top of her head. He had always wanted to do this to Lisa. To have such trust in a person that he would be allowed to treat them in such an affectionate manner. "Is there anything you would like to say, or know about me?"
"Yes… y-you're… y-y-y-ou s-sa-" She couldn't finish her sentence before throwing into a mess of tears. Wiping them with her hands, she gave up on acting preserved and jumped toward Kage's lap into the midst of his core. "T-T-T-THANK" was all that was audible through the muffled calls into his shirt.
Kage did not discern the length at which she spent in his grasp. Despite his isolation in the walls of the hospital, he had heard that most of the buildings near the bunker were deemed uninhabitable. There were now thousands displaced with nowhere to go most likely fighting for the space that could be taken. It was all too similar, a similarity that bound him to this girl. He let what he would otherwise be disgusted with continue for however long she needed to do it for.
In the destruction of what he knew to be everything, he wished for someone equal to share those emotions of sadness, instead they led to being bottled up. No one lasted for long, and none got it all scraped out of him. It was an immense burden that he deemed no one deserved to have so he allowed this grievance from her.
Finally, her sobbing subsided, having naught but a single question posed. "U-um… so, you're a Hero. Wh-what's your Hero name?"
It was a question which piqued his interest. For so long he had never even considered himself a hero, but on this day was a child gazing into his gawking face admiring him as such. Without a breath to waste Kage knew what to call himself. Fantasized for extended periods and picked with an eloquent process, he considered this very question since he had first seen the image of his first Hero knocking the wind from a cat napper in the cartoons.
The plays, operas and orchestral pieces surrounding his waking steps. Blaring of instruments as they open for a centerpiece that will knock the socks off of all who attend for their showing. He would be the beginning to prelude to the satisfying middle only to then display the end for they will all go together in.
"Overture, that's my name. You better remember it for the future." Playfully rubbing his knuckles into her cranium.
She grabbed onto his arm yelling, "I WILL! I PROMISE!"
Thicker amassed the snowfall and bitter chills came with the yuletide fever. Above the cool of the morning sun was a brief period to relax. A period which would be swallowed soon when the glazing fever subsided.