I am back again with another timeline because I guess this is my life now. This timeline, though, is specifically about the events for December 21st 20XX and forward since I've noticed that Quimchee is adding clocks ever since Nol got stabbed, and everything feels like a race against the clock for some reason.
I'm not going to add any screenshots since this is just, as the title says, keeping track of time. Nothing more, nothing less.
Just in case someone is not paying attention to what they are about to read, this contains spoilers up to I Love Yoo's Episode 244.
If more clocks appear in future episodes I might update this.
As always, I love hearing what you guys think so feel free to reach out!
Italic means that it's not known when exactly in the timeline that specific event took place. I still placed the event where it makes most sense.
(Ep. XYZ) means the episode where the time is mentioned/seen.
Saturday December 21st
9:42pm Nol falls from the second floor to a glass table. (Ep. 210)
Before 11pm Nol is rushed to the hospital (Ep. 215)
Kousuke went to Hirahara's hostpital to look for Nol after being spaced out for around 30 minutes. (Ep.213)
Kousuke get's knocked out by a wall.
11:55pm YuJing leaves Rand alone. (Ep. 215)
Sunday December 22nd
12:00am Kousuke wakes up to hear Hansuke arguing with Yui (Ep. 220)
12:19am Meg find's Rand's present for Kousuke in the trash (Ep. 220)
12:22am Hansuke steals the blood samples (Ep. 221)
4:28am Rand leaves to visit Kousuke. Kousuke has been knocked out by the tea. (Ep. 221)
4:21am Nol wakes up. Shin-Ae texts Dieter and Soushi who are out of the hospital (Ep. 215)
4:47am Dieter and Soushi leave WacDonalds (Ep. 225)
5:06am Dieter and Soushi arrive to the hospital (Ep. 225)
5:09am Shinae goes to get Dieter and Soushi/Birthday party starts. (Ep. 225)
5:26am Stalkyoo dance to christmas music at sunrise. Geez, not even 20 minutes? no wonder Dieter was still awake to witness it all. (Ep. 220)
Hansuke visits YuJing and stores the blood samples.
Nana arrives to the hospital and Nol's jail time is pushed for 3 days counting today (so December 24th is his last day of freedom)
Hansuke takes the blood samples to get tested
7:52am Shin-Ae texts Dieter "Is everything okay?" after he and Soushi left the hospital (Ep. 225)
8:21am Shin-Ae and Nana meet (Ep. 225)
Kousuke wakes up, goes with Yui for breakfast, Hansuke and YuJing pick him up afterwards
8:40am-ish Yui arrives to church right after mass ended (Ep. 230)
"Convince me"
Shin-Ae gets picked up from the hospital by her family
Maya and Shin-Ae talk
Kousuke get's medically checked
11:30am Dieter texts Shin-Ae about going to the hospital together during the afternoon. Shin-Ae takes a nap (Ep. 235)
1:30pm Kousuke drops off his phone at his apartment before heading to Nol's hospital (Ep. 244)
3:30pm Dieter texts a sleeping Shin-Ae (Ep. 240)
Dieter comes to pick up Shin-Ae
Dieter talks with Nol
Kousuke arrives at the hospital with Hansuke and YuJing
Kousuke has a panic attack
5:51pm Shin-Ae wakes up from her nap (Ep. 240)
5:55pm Shin-Ae texts Nol "I know I'm blocked but just in case..." (Ep. 243)
The AA 101 Group to which Shin-Ae and her dad go to is at 7:00pm
7:41pm Hansuke and YuJing are hanging out with college friends. Kousuke isn't picking up his phone. Gregory M tells Hansuke that he can get his stuff done by the end of the week (Friday is the 26th) (Ep. 241)
8:35pm Nana, Dieter and Soushi leave the hospital for the day. (Ep. 242)
8:45pm Shin-Ae is at the AA 101 Group and receives a text apology from Dieter (Ep. 242)
Alyssa tells Nol she "really needs to see him"
Monday December 23rd
10:10am Kousuke's secretary looks at his watch and notices Kousuke missed work (Ep. 243)
10:30am Yui get's a text message from Alyssa saying she's going to visit Nol (Ep. 244)
11:05am Meg mentions how she is heading to the library soon (Ep. 243)
A bit before 11:45am Alyssa arrives to Nol's hospital to talk (Ep. 243)
Between 11:45am and 12:25pm Nol and Alyssa stay quiet (Ep. 243)
12:25pm Alyssa and Nol finally start talking and Yui arrives. (Ep. 243)
Shin-Ae will arrive to the hospital around 2pm (Ep.244)
This is part 1 of 4 of my I Love Yoo Timeline as of Episode 241.
Part 1 and 2 consists of laying out all the detailed evidence with descriptions, screenshots and episode number.
Part 3 consists of explaining the evidence, connecting the dates and some math because the I Love Yoo universe (or as I like to call it, Yooniverse) uses letters instead of numbers to represent official years.
Part 4 is the I Love Yoo Timeline.
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Seeing Nessa alive in Kousuke's flashback of his highschool graduation day made me question everything I though I knew about the timeline so I have read, reread, and re-reread this webtoon; I've researched old reddit and tumblr posts, Quimchee's old Curious Cat answers, the wiki, and so much more.
(Just in case someone is worried, all information presented is free and publicly available. I was told that in Quimchee's patreon I could possibly find more exact information but I decided against looking there since I wouldn't be able to share my findings outside of patreon and my goal is for everyone who is a fan of I Love Yoo to be able to see this mega post.)
Because of the huge ammount of information I've decided to split my original post in 4 different parts so it's easier for everyone (including myself) to come back and find the information without having to endlessly scroll.
I encourage you all to go read/reread I Love Yoo with the new information you learn with this timeline in mind because oohhh boy does the story hit different. (Also take that opportunity to like all the episodes to support Quimchee!)
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Turns out there's a lot of information in a 7+ year old, 240+ episode long webtoon; who would have though? Not me!
Anyways, there's so much information scattered all over the place and everything is so connected to everything that it was hard to organize it.
The evidence and information is in ' Whatever Order I Remembered It' order , but even so I tried my best to keep it organized by categories.
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Episode 222 News articles
Here we got a lot of information in the presentation of news articles. So I'll keep this information as it's own category.
Let's read them up close.
Let's start with "Randulph Hannesson appointed as temporary Chairman of Hirahara Corp"
In it, it states how in March 27, 20WZ Rand gets appointed as temporary Chairman of the Board. At the same time, according to the public, he is "seeing" (dating?) Yui. Before becoming temporary Chairman of the Board (which we know he became permanent) he was CFO of Hirahara Corp. And before that he "founded a successful finance firm, Hannsesson Finance, which Hirahara Corp. has since acquired."
Now let's focus on the newspaper that's right under. In it, it talks about how an ilegal immigrant woman was found dead (assumed to be suicide) and her son is no where to be found. All arrows point to this woman being Nessa, Nol's mom.
It doesn't have a title but it does have a date. Newspapers normally publish these type of news the following morning from which the news happened meaning that Nessa died December 21st, 20XP
No wonder Nol hates his birthday week.
On the US Asia Daily Herald newspaper, "Chairman of Investment Giant Hirahara Corp to Step Down." When Rand was still CFO he was one of the witnesses that helped Young-Chul Kim be held accountable for all the SA he did. So that's where Nol got his sense of respecting and standing up for women. And that this happend in Octobre 31st, 20WY
Not really adding information to the timeline but just in case someone doesn't know, Yu-Jing has the police department interview transcripts for Nessa's death investigation
Lastly we have "Prestigious Prep School Closes SA Investiagtion With No Charges Filed" where it states that on March 20XW the 16-month long investigation of 50 years of SA with over 100 cases was basically dismissed.
Right before Nol was sent to the mental facility
Episode 150
Episode 150 starts with a flashback right after the brother incident where Nol is getting locked up in the mental facility ambulance. (This is confirmed in episode 210 because the dialogue matches up with the one in Kousuke's flashback)
And right after the flashback we get this news article that Yu-Jing has. "Troubled Child, Aftermath of the Hirahara Extra Marrital Affair."
So now we know that the brother incident that got Nol into the mental facility happened 1 year after the supposed marriage reconciliation between Yui and Rand.
Episode 210
We see a glimpse of the immediate aftermath of the incident.
It happened at night while raining.
Kousuke doesn't know what happened.
Yui's hand is bruised.
Nol is taken directly to the "Hirahara Mental Health Institute"
I'm very proud of my following discovery
The trees have no leaves.
Why is leafless trees so important and why am I so proud of my finding? Because trees lose their leaves during the Fall and by Winter they are completely leafless. This whole scene has all trees leafless meaning that it's winter. But hold on, it can't be winter winter because it's raining and not snowing. Bingo. It's early winter. And winter starts December 21st.
Episode 239
The pain I felt reading this after I figured out when in the timeline this happens.. my heart hurts.
This is the brother incident (at least the start of it).
Nol had no prior connection/relationship to the Hirahara's before this (he used the address on the letter's Rand send his mother to find them)
Nol went to Kousuke's house because he needs help, because he has no where else to go because his mother is gone.
If you're having a hard time keeping up, all this basically means the night Nessa died Nol went to look for Rand and his other family for help which is also the same night the brother incident happened which got Nol locked up in the Mental Facility which is why in both news articles Nol's whereabouts are unknown, because he was immediately taken away. (and all of this happened on his birthday :D).
After Nol got out of the mental facility
Episode 99
Nol presents himself using the name Yeong-gi.
Dieter and Nol met on the summer right before their first year of highschool.
Dieter met Nol before Soushi did.
At this moment in time it's been 5 years since Nol last saw his mom.
Episode 157
Nol was trying to befriend Soushi at the same time Kousuke was still in college.
Episode 155
Nol got out of the Mental Facility "roughly 6 years ago"
Nol spent "almost 2 years" inside the mental facility.
Kousuke mentions that the Yeong-gi name was something he started using after he came out of the Mental facility.
Episode 205
A while after Nol got out of the mental facility, Nana arrived.
This is part 3 of 4 of my I Love Yoo Timeline as of Episode 241.
Part 1 and 2 consists of laying out all the detailed evidence with descriptions, screenshots and episode number.
Part 3 consists of explaining the evidence, connecting the dates and some math because the I Love Yoo universe (the Yooniverse, if you will) uses letters instead of numbers to represent official years.
Part 4 is the I Love Yoo Timeline.
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Now that all the evidence has been laid out I can now go in depth about how the dates add up and what the heck does 20XX stand for.
I will mostly be making reference to the evidence rather than showing it and pointing it out. If you wish to see the evidence yourself to know exactly what information was presented, I encourage you to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this I Love Yoo Timeline post.
(disclaimer, whenever I say "today" or refer to the present I mean in Yooniverse, specifically talking about year 20XX)
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Well, the years start coming..
So I want to start with explaining what year 20XX is since that's our starting point.
If you check the exact dates we are given + the November and December calendars we are shown you will see that it doesn't make sense. But! don't leave! just because it doesn't make sense in our universe it doesn't mean it doesn't make sense in the Yooniverse.
Year 20XX is not the equivalent of any year that exists in our universe. Septermber's calendar matches with (just to mention 3) 2011, 2016, 2022; November's calendar matches with 2012, 2018, 2029; December's calendar matches with 2013, 2019, 2024. All this to say that year 20XX is it's own thing that exists and makes sense in Yooniverse and not our own, which is one of the reasons why I won't be converting the Yooniverse years to an irl equivalent.
The other reason why I wont be converting Yooniverse years to irl equivalent is because the Yooniverse keeps track of their years with letters unlike us that keep track of years using the decimal number system. In other words, Yooniverse uses the basic English alphabet to keep track of the years and we use numbers.
With that information stablished, lets now figure out how many years appart are each year is in the Alphabet "Number" System (ANS to make it short).
We know from what Kousuke told Shinae in episode 155 that "roughly 6 years ago" Nol got out of the mental facility and he spent "almost 2 years" inside of it. This means that the day Nol got taken to the mental facility was 8 years ago, and if you remember Nessa died the same night Nol got taken to the mental facility.
The news articles from episode 222 tells us that Nessa died in 20XP.
With this information we can see that 8 years ago from today (20XX) is the year 20XP. And if we look at the letters in the alphabet, the letter P is the 8 letters behind letter X.
"20XP is 8 years ago from 20XX"
Now that we have figured out how ANS works, we can figure out when the rest of years take place. Let's try it with the following:
Randulph became Chairman of the Board in 20WZ
Let's apply what we've learned. W is 1 space before X so that means Rand became Chairman 1 decade ago, right? WRONG. Decades don't convert directly from ANS to decimal.
Imagine that the alphabet repeats itself over and over again. Each full alphabet list is named after a letter. Each time it starts over, the name for the alphabet changes to the next letter. So for example, letter R in the first alphabet would be represented as AR, letter F in the next alphabet would be BF, and so on. So letter X in the list X is XX.
Having that idea in mind, how far back Z from X? If you go back in the list, X is 24 spaces from Z and Z is in the "previous" alphabetic list meaning that WZ is 24 spaces from XX.
20WZ is 24 years from 20XX.
I'll save you from the math for the rest and I'll just put here all the results:
Young-Chul Kim was Chairman from 20WA to 20WY = he was chairman for 26 years. He was chairman 50 years ago from today until Rand took his place
Rand became chairman in 20WZ = he became chairman 24 years ago today.
The prestigious prep school SA investigation started in 20XW which was last year. In which it states that it was investigating 50 years of SA reports.
Nessa died 8 years ago in 20XP
And they don't stop coming.
So that's all for the "what year does the letters mean". Now we'll start adding dialogue together to connect the dots and see how many years ago different events happened.
Everyone's age when following Nol's backstory
So we know the the brother incident happened December 20XP which was exactly 8 years ago making Kousuke 16 and Nol 10- turning 11.
Nol got out of the mental facility the year he turned 13 (meaning when he was 12) and Kousuke turned 18 (Year 20XR)
Nol met Dieter when he was 15, Kousuke turned 21 and Dieter turned 14 (i dont know when Dieter's birthday is). (This is the perfect moment to remind everyone that the ages do make sense because Dieter started hitting puberty at 14 and Nol at 15 so it's fine that Nol looked very childlike in the flashbacks and he looks Dieter's age in that flashback as well)
Nol was 15 when he met Soushi (14) and Alyssa (15)
Nana and Yui's last encounter was when Nol was 13 and Kousuke was 18.
Conclusions so far:
Nol lived with the Hirarahas no more than a year, Nana arrived very shortly after he got out of the mental facility
Nol went to Middle School for 2 years and made absolutely no friends before he met Dieter.
Everyone's age when following Kousuke's backstory
Kousuke graduated high school at 14 years old in spring. The year he was 14 in spring was 20XO which was 9 years ago. Nol was 9.
Kousuke's college friend group started when he was about to turn 15 (assuming he started college the same year he graduated high school)
Kousuke was about to graduate from his master's degree when Meg was 20 years old, and Meg and Kousuke share birth-year meaning that when Kousuke was 20 (Year 20XU) he was still studying.
When Kousuke was 20, Hansuke didn't know the college friend group had fallen apart meaning that that flashback memory Kousuke had of YuJing and Hansuke arguing must have happened after Meg's flashback (unless it happened before and Hansuke was just completely oblivious about the extreme animosity between Kousuke and his friends, which I highly doubt so I won't be considering it for my timeline).
There is absolutely no way that Kousuke being 24 years old today could have had 20 years "about 5 years ago" making Hansuke's recollection of events unreliable (and I don't blame him. The poor guy has permanent eyebags, he was busy studying to become a doctor.)
If Kousuke started college the same year he graduated high school then he did his BS and Master's in a total of 6 years more or less which is surprisingly a pretty normal pace.
Kousuke and Yu-jing knew each other since Kousuke was 14 or a bit younger.
Kousuke playboy era was between 14-15 and 20 years old.
Conslusions so far:
Nol was not in the mental facility when Kousuke graduated high school.
It's very likely that one of the reasons Nol didn't make any friends during his 2 years in Middle School after he got out of the mental facility was because Kousuke was babysitting him during that time and Kousuke kept telling everyone that he was very violent.
Kousuke partook in underage drinking and underage.... adult activies with the oposite sex....
Kousuke's friend group lasted 4-5 years
Everyone's age when following Yui and Rand's backstory
Rand became chairman in March 27th, 20WZ and at the same time he had "been seen in public" with Yui
Yui is in her 40s right now meaning she had Kousuke when she was 16 at the earliest and 24 at the latest (My personal opinion is that she had him in her 20s meaning she is closer to being 50 than we thought unless Kousuke was an absolute accident.... or something darker than that.... because I can't see her choosing to become pregnant in her teens)
Kousuke was conceived during Rand and Yui's honeymoon in February
Kousuke turned 24 years in November 8th, 20XX meaning he was born on year 20WZ, the same year Rand became Chairman. I KNOW. I WAS SHOCKED TOO.
Conclusions
Yui and Rand really got married in secret from the public and Yui hid her pregnancy from the public too. This really broke my brain.
And as a final thing to point out while considering Rand and Yui's backstory: Rand and Yui's marriage reconciliation happened 1 year before the brother incident/Nessa's death. Also, high school graduation flashback where Nessa appears happens when Kousuke is 14 (he will turn 15 later that year) and the brother incident happened when he recently turned 16 meaning that whatever happened in that high school graduation flashback will most likely be relevant to what the press calls "marriage reconciliation between Yui and Rand"
Everyone's age when following Shin-ae's backstory
Finally something that won't break my brain. Future me speaking here, it did break my brain.
Shin-Ae, Maya, Dieter, Soushi and Rika all turned 17 in 20XX and they are in their final year of high school. Min-Hyuk is 19.
Shinae's fall incident was on Min-Hyuk's last school year as a Middle School student, but during Fall Autumn. Min-Hyuk graduated in 20XT so that means the fall happened 20XS.
In 20XS Min-Hyuk was 14, Alyssa 13 and Shin-Ae was 12
Shin-Ae graduated Middle School and started high school at 14 (year 20XU)
Conclusions:
Alyssa met Nol the year everyone started high school meaning that it had been 1-2 years after Alyssa pushed Shinae to her death by accident
High school in the Yooniverse lasts 4 years just like in the USA school system (felt the need to point this out becuase "high school" in a lot of countries last 3 years)
Final words for Part 3
If you feel lost while reading all of this, imagine how I felt having all this information going round and around all day every day in my head without the brain power to see it all at once and connect the dots. Not to mention that what you just read is the version that makes sense and adds up. I had to re-write this so many times because I kept finding new information breaking the timeline over and over again.
Up next I will lay out the timeline in order with dates and time gaps between each event.
This is part 4 of 4 of my I Love Yoo Timeline as of Episode 241.
Part 1 and 2 consists of laying out all the detailed evidence with descriptions, screenshots and episode number.
Part 3 consists of explaining the evidence, connecting the dates and some math because the I Love Yoo universe (the Yooniverse, if you will) uses letters instead of numbers to represent official years.
Part 4 is the I Love Yoo Timeline.
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If you havent read the previous 3 parts of this mega post I highly encourage you to go check them out before continuing since up ahead I will be writing and explaining under the assumption that you have read the previous 3 parts.
All the events are placed where they are according to the evidence. I will not be providing much explanation in this post as to why things are placed where they are in the timeline so if you need explanation go back to the previous parts.
I also won't be adding most of Shin-Ae focused events otherwise the timeline becomes unnecessarily messy.
And lastly, I won't be mentioning every single event that has happened in current year of the story (20XX), only major events. If you want a more detailed timeline for present year this old reddit post that goes up to episode 146 has more details.
While I was finishing writing this timeline AugmentedElle from reddit published her own version of the timeline (Elle, if you see this, big fan. I don't have reddit but big fan) which has some parts I disagree with based on my interpretation of the evidence but her timeline is so well written and easy to follow + it's more detailed than mine that I honestly do recommend checking it out as well because Elle did a way better job than me in that regard.
Without further ado..
Cheat sheet
Because the Yooniverse uses the alphabet instead of numbers to keep track of years, it's hard to really grasp how much time has really passed. This is why I created this little chart where it lays down the year with the number equivalent and the age each character had in each specific year.
Dieter, Soushi, Maya and Rika were born the same year as Shin-Ae.
Sang-Chul and Alyssa were born the same year.
Meg was born the same year as Kousuke.
Yui's age is not exact. We only know she is in her 40s meaning she can be either 40 or 49. Meaning she was pregnant with Kousuke between 16-25. I chose 20 for no other reason than it's right in the middle.
I have no idea of anyone else's age (Rand, Hansuke, YuJing, etc) so I didn't even add my guesses to not confuse the timeline. If you know any clue about someone's age I would love to know!
The Timeline
I'll start with the earliest date and move forward from there.
Italic means that it's not known when exactly in the year that specific event took place. I still placed the event where it makes most sense.
January 20WA === 50 years ago
Young-Chul Kim become Chairman of Hirahara Corp.
Prestigious Prep School starts mishandling reports of SA
+ 25 Year
October 31st, 20WY === 25 years ago
Young-Chul Kim steps down as Chairman after SA accusations
Hirahara Corp CFO of several years, Randulph Hannesson is a witness against Young-Chul Kim
Next year
January 20WZ === 24 years ago
Yui and Rand get married without the public's knowledge
Yui and Rand have their honeymoon in February
Kousuke is conceived in February
Rand gets announced as temporary chairman of Hirahara Corp on March 27th
As of March 27th, the press and public only know that Yui and Rand relationship goes as far as "seeing each other in public"
Kousuke is born November 8th
+ 5 Years
January 20XE ==== 19 years ago
Nol is conceived around March
Kousuke has his 5th birthday
Nol is born December 21st
+ 6 Years
January 20XJ ==== 13 Years ago
Nol and Nessa move to USAsia
Nol and Kousuke meet for the first time
Kousuke has his 11th birthday
Nol has his 6th birthday
+ 4 Years
January 20XO ==== 9 years ago
Kousuke Graduates High School (Nessa is at the park the same day)
Yui and Rand's public marriage reconciliation
Kousuke starts college
Kousuke gets a college friend group
Kousuke has his 15th birthday
Nol has his 10th birthday
Next Year
January 20XP ==== 8 years ago
Kousuke has his 16th birthday
Nol has his 11th birthday
Nessa is found dead December 21st
The brother incident happens
Nol is taken to the Mental Facility
+ 2 Years
January 20XR ==== 6 years ago
Nol gets out of the Mental Facility
Nol get's officially introduced as Rand's bastard son
Kousuke has his 18th birthday
Nol has his 13th birthday
Next Year
January 20XS ==== 5 years ago
Nana moves to US Asia*
Nol moves in with Nana*
Shin-Aer starts going to Min-Hyuk's middle school
Shin-Ae has her 12th birthday
Alyssa has her 13th birthday
Shin-Ae and Alyssa meet
Kousuke has his 19th birthday
Alyssa pushes Shin-Ae
Shin-Ae gets out of the hospital
Nol has his 14th birthday
*This could have happened in late 20XR. It all depends on how exact "5 years" ago was.
Next Year
January 20XT ==== 4 years ago
Shin-Ae has her 13th birthday
Alyssa has her 14th birthday
Min-Hyuk graduates middle school and starts high schools
Meg has her 20th birthday
Kousuke has his 20th birthday
Nol has his 15th birthday
For the past 2 years Nol has had no friends (ever since he got out of the mental facility) and Kousuke has been acting like his "guardian" (during which Kousuke has been constantly badmouthing Nol to everyone)
Next Year
January 20XU ==== 3 years ago
Shinae graduates Middle School
Shinae, Dieter and Soushi have their 14th birthday
Alyssa has her 15th birthday
Nol and Dieter meet while running during "summer before year 1 of high school"
Dieter, Shinae, Soushi and Nol (and the rest) start high school
Nol starts trying to befriend Soushi*
During a very rainy period Nol tries to meet his mom after 5 years of not seeing her*
Kousuke talks to Soushi*
Nol becomes friends with Dieter and Soushi*
Nol hangs out with Dieter and shortly after Soushi joins the group.*
Kousuke takes a break from babysitting Nol*
Nol, Dieter and Soushi meet Alyssa*
Nol and Alyssa start dating*
Alyssa starts the path of becoming a Kpop idol*
Kousuke and his college friends have the fallout**
Meg meets Kousuke*
Meg has her 21st birthday
Kousuke has his 21st birthday
Nol has his 16th birthday
(*All these events need to happen in that order, the placement on the timeline in relation with the other events depend on when Nessa's birthday was or when exactly Nol tried to "see" his mom)
(**I've decided to assume Hansuke doesn't really remember the exact facts of how, what and when Kousuke lost his college friends since he was in a different college, he would only occationally tag along and he was very busy with his doctor exams at the time)
Note: Whatever happened with Kousuke's friends, the fallout could perfectly have dragged throughout a couple of weeks/months. It doesn't necesarily need to have happened in a one day event.
Pretty eventful year
Next Year
January 20XV ==== 2 years ago
Kousuke graduates from his master's degree at 21 years old*
Dieter and Soushi have their 15th birthday
Alyssa has her 16th birthday
Kousuke has his 22nd birthday
Nol has his 17th birthday
(*I've decided to take Meg's flashback gossip about Kousuke with a grain of salt. This could have happened at the end of year 20XU instead of the beginning of this year.)
Next Year
January 20XW ==== Last year
In March a SA investigation in prestigious prep school (the one where Kim Sang-Chul is the Student Council President) gets launch
Min-Hyuk graduates high school
Kousuke has his 23rd birthday
Nol has his 18th birthday
Next Year
January 20XX ==== this year
Min-Hyuk goes to USA for college
Dieter, Soushi, Shin-Ae have their 17th birthday
Alyssa has her 18th birthday
In July the SA investigation in the prestigious preschool ends with nothing found and nothing done.
Dieter confesses to Shin-Ae
Saturday September 17th is the party where Shin-Ae meets the brothers
Thursday November 8th: Kousuke has his 24th birthday
Between Friday 9th and Saturday November 10th Shin-Ae's dad goes into a coma
Wednesday November 14th is the Gala. (That same night Shin-Ae was supposed to get evicted)
December 1st Min-Hyuk returns
Monday December 16th Nol has his trial (and he's sentenced for 120 days starting December 22nd)
Tuesday December 17th: Shin-Ae and Nol meet in the rain, Nol blocks everyone.
Saturday December 21st: Hirahara's Chirstmas party, Min-Hyuk's welcome home party, Nol turns 19 year's old
Sunday December 22nd: Nol is at the hospital (his sentence is pushed to start December 25th)
Personal Thoughts
This timeline broke my brain more times than I can remember. Whenever I thought I was close to being done with it I would remember something new or come across new information that would force me to rethink almost everything.
When I first started writing this timeline it was only going to be 2 parts, the evidence with the explanation and the timeline layout, but it kept getting bigger and bigger. It was supposed to be released the first week of October. We are in November. I've been writing this for 2 months.
I almost wrote this timeline in a manner that I would drag you all along through the same path of insanity that I went through but I decided against it not because I felt compassion for you all but because I plan to come back to these posts in the future for when I want to refresh my memory and I didn't want future me to go through that confusion again. I've suffered enough.
Shout out to my friend who lend me her DMs whenever I was going crazy and let me rant myself into sanity every time.
Conclusion
The timeline is not perfect, specially the events that happen between 20XS (5 years ago) and 20XV (2 years ago), but I'm satisfied with how it turned out considering the information we have so far.
Please don't take this timeline as the one that rules them all. If you have a suggestion on the order of events or theories on what could have happened I would more than love to read about them, so please do share your thoughts!
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This is part 4 of 4. In case you missed it, go read the previous parts:
This is part 2 of 4 of my I Love Yoo Timeline as of Episode 241.
Part 1 and 2 consists of laying out all the detailed evidence with descriptions, screenshots and episode number.
Part 3 consists of explaining the evidence, connecting the dates and some math because the I Love Yoo universe (or as I like to call it, Yooniverse) uses letters instead of numbers to represent official years.
Part 4 is the I Love Yoo Timeline.
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I told you guys there's a lot of information. Both The Evidence parts reached picture limit.
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Kosuke's life when he was in school
Episode 91
YuJing and Kousuke went to high school and university together.
Episode 79
Whatever happend that caused the fallout between Kousuke and his college friends happened "about 5 years ago" according to Hansuke.
I'll show the evidence later in this post and go in depth about it more in part 3 but for now do keep in mind that Hansuke didn't go to the same college Kousuke and the friend group did so when he says "about" we should interpret that as "I don't really remember how long ago it was exactly since I had more important things that needed my attention"
Episode 144
Kousuke graduated in Spring
Kousuke was 14 the day of his graduation
Episode 241
Kousuke goes to the park with his mom right after his high school graduation and Nessa is there.
Episode 239
Hansuke was there at the funeral related to the college friend group fallout.
Kousuke got his friend group at the beginning of his college days
Kousuke was part of the friend group for a couple of years
Episode 116
In Meg's flashback we learn:
Alyssa has already started the path of becoming a Kpop idol
Meg is 20 years old
Hasuke and Meg went to the same university. A different university from Kousuke, YuJing and the friend group.
The college group of friends would visit Hansuke at his college every once in a while.
Kousuke used to date "around" in college.
At this moment in time, the fallout between Kousuke and his college friends has started to happened if it hasn't already happened AND Hansuke wasn't aware of it.
At this moment in time Kosuke is "like 20"
Kousuke is "finishing up his masters this year or something"
I do want to highlight that the information that we get for Kousuke's graduation is based on a rumor that reached a different college than the one Kousuke goes to.
From personal experience I can, with 100% confidence, say that people that start college at a younger age get mistaken to be much younger and finish school much faster than what is true just because the gossip stays the same throughout the years without considering that time passes for said person who the gossip talks about.
In my personal experience, a person who started college when they were 16 had their gossip evolve to say that they started college at 14. And by the time they were 20 and with a year more of school the gossip was "that person is graduating soon and they are like 16 or something. Yeah dude, they are super smart".
So my point is that Kousuke, having started college at a young age, always looking young for his age with that Hirahara genetics and low testosterone levels, and the fact that this information comes from a gossip in a college he doesn't even go to, all tells us that this is not trustworthy source of information and we should take it with a grain of salt.
Shin-Ae's Timeline
Regarding Shin-Ae's timeline, I won't be touching up on her personal family affairs since that's a whole can of worms that I don't have the brain capacity nor the space to add it in this post.
If in the future the whole plot of Shin-Ae's sister and her mother becomes extremely relevant then I might do another Evidence post for that and add the events to the timeline. But for now, I don't see them that important to the timeline mystery so I'll only mention whatever I feel is relevant for the timeline I'm constructing.
Episode 222
Shinae and Alyssa met in "Class of 20XT"
Episode 205
Here we see all 3 of Min-Hyuk's Middle School (which is the same thing as Junior High) yearbooks. Min Hyuk's last Middle School year was 20XT = Min-Hyuk graduated on 20XT.
Episode 202
On the Shin-Ae/Alyssa flashback Min-Hyuk says that he will be graduating middle school "next year" meaning that the incident took place the year before 20XT
When Shin-Ae was leaving the hospital, winter was just around the corner (Winter officially starts December 21st)
Exact dates for events that have happened since we started following the story
Episode 6
Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th of September 20XX was the day of the party where Shinae met the brothers. When Rika and Maya got pranked by Shinae and Nol at the very first party.
Episode 37
November's calendar
Episode 144
December's and part of January's calendar
Character information shared by Quimchee in her 2017 and 2018 Curious Cat answers
Kousuke seems to have had a very active dating life in his teens
Character's ages (keep in mind these answers were given when in Yooniverse it was still November)
Other information relevant to the construction of the timeline
Nol was a late bloomer. This is important to keep in mind because Nol looks young in so many flashbacks, specially compared to Dieter, Soushi, and Alyssa. Any Nol we see before his 15th birthday will look like a little kid.
Here’s one of my pieces for Noragami Reverse Bang 2021 this year, hosted by @noragamibigbang!
It was a great experience working together with @ohplagg on this, I had a great time working with you! I was also able to try a lot of new things for my art.
“My name is Sakura,” she decides to try a much simpler approach “what’s yours?”
The man with his right hand still holding half of his face and with a skeptical look writes on the dirt.
夜卜
Ya…to?
AU where Tenjin never fired Tamanone.
NOTE: Adachitoka never bothered to come up with Tamanone's Tenjin given name so I'm following their example by also avoiding the issue and using Sakura instead
I want to once again give a big 'thank you' to @noragamibigbang for organizing this.
And an even bigger 'thank you' to my lovely partner (@mochakat) who came up with the idea and who also created a beautiful artwork that goes along with this!
It was a day like every other day; nothing new, nothing exiting, nothing special. Just everything really quiet and peaceful and boring.
Sakura, a beautiful young lady with long dark hair dressed in a miko, was starting to despise every second of it. Well not every second of it. Sakura couldn’t really complain much about her days being too peaceful, it definitely was an improvement from those days where her master had his rage moments and fired anyone who even dared to just breathe the wrong way in his presents.
She was lucky that Tsuyu was there that day to talk to master Tenjin out of the idea of firing her, she will forever owe her live to Tsuyu. Who knows what would have happened if she had been fired that day who knows how long ago? ...Was it a 1000 years ago? It’s been so long that Sakura had lost the track of time.
But peaceful days doesn’t mean they should also be boring and lately life had become extremely mundane. Ever since she was forbidden from working in the prayer altar she’s been sweeping fallen leaves from stone stairs that lead up to the tori, far enough that she can’t eavesdrop on the human prayers any more. According to Tenjin-sama “it’s his job to listen to the prayers, not hers” but Sakura knows there’s more to the reason even if he doesn’t say it.
“-hope Tenjin-sama grants that old lady’s prayer.” Sakura’s attention is caught by the gossiping some shrine maidens are having about some human prayer. Oh, how she misses listening to human prayers; learning about the near shore problems and how humans found solutions to their problems, the emotions they felt for one another, the human nature can be beautiful sometimes.
Sakura stops her sweeping as she listens carefully to the gossiping whispers “Yeah. Ever since that Yaboku god murdered that old lady’s son and his wife she comes here daily asking Tenjin-sama to bless her granddaughter academically since scholarships are the only way that child will have a way to pay her studies.”
How unfortunate, Sakura thinks to herself as she resumes her chore of sweeping leaves. If only that Yaboku god would cease to exist, the world would become a much happier place.
-
After an excruciating long and boring day Sakura is taking the last basket of fallen leaves to the trees and bushes at the back of the shrine for disposal. As she dumps it all in the pile of leaves she notice what looks like a head of dark hair among all the orange, gold and yellow autumn leaves.
A bear. Her heart drops and she’s suddenly hit with her fight and flight response. She knows in theory she shouldn’t be scared by things like this but survival instincts wait for no one when a bear is right there.
Without even a second thought she throws the hardest punch she can manage to where she’s guessing the nose would be.
“Ahrg!” someone replies to Sakura’s punch. Maybe she should have given it a second thought.
Sakura frantically apologizes as she tries to check the nose of the poor victim she just attacked. As she does so she notice that the person in front of her was a young looking man dressed in a yukata.
“Here, let me see.” She insists as she pushes the poor individual’s forehead back and tries to move his hands out of the way, but the man rejects her aid between whimpers and grunts as he tilts his head forward and hold the right side of his face with one hand
An awkward silence falls among the two as the young man attends to his bleeding nose, spitting blood from what seems to be a busted lip and probably a lost tooth all the while Sakura just stands there.
“That was a really hard hit, uh? I’m so sorry. I never do things like this, I don’t know what came over me. I really thought you were a bear, which is ridiculous because why would you be a bear? Bears are too busy right now seeking their shelter for winter, they wouldn’t be under a pile of leaves in the back of a shrine, of course not! But why were you under a pile of leaves in the back of the shrine? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just that it’s unusual- surprising! I meant surprising. Unusual sounds like it’s something bad- which is not! Totally not.” Sakura rants on in her best effort to strike a friendly conversation with the stranger. She sighs and stops her words as she notice that the young man isn’t appreciative of her effort.
“My name is Sakura,” she decides to try a much simpler approach “what’s yours?”
The man with his right hand still holding half of his face and with a skeptical look writes on the dirt.
夜卜
Ya…to?
-
Ever since the ‘I can’t believe it’s not a bear!’ incident Sakura had encountered Yato in several other occasions. Once he was hiding at the top of a tree, other times she found him sleeping in the garden shed and each and every time she tried her luck to befriend him.
He had made it clear several times to leave him alone, that he didn’t want anything to do with her or anyone for that matter, but she was bored out of her mind most of the time and he kept coming back so might as well enjoy the company right?
As the weeks passed by, Sakura found out that Yato was a shy curious individual that just hid behind a mean attitude. The first time she noticed this was when she was talking about her first days as Tenjin-sama’s shinki. As she was talking about it she could tell that she had Yato’s full attention even though he acted as he didn’t care.
Because of this she started to talk about anything and everything in an effort to bait him into participating in the conversation. Some topics were a dead ends but there were a few that she could tell had Yato curious to know more.
-
“But why flowers? Can’t they just say things straight as it is?” This wasn’t the first time that Yato had asked something that to many could be considered obvious.
“Sometimes words and actions aren’t enough to express one’s emotions and feelings. Flowers have different meanings that can help us express what we wouldn’t be able to with just words or actions.” Sakura explained.
“For example,” Sakura continued with her explination, “the emotion of love. You can tell someone you love them but there’s a big difference between the love you feel for a friend, the love you feel for a family member and the love you feel for your lover. Flowers help communicate what type of love you want to say.”
By now Yato had warmed up enough to the point that he was constantly asking questions about anything that she was talking about in the moment.
He asked her about human prayers, about dreams and wishes, about human festivals and ceremonies, about sports and game. He asked about the different types of human relationships, about human entertainment. If humans were involved, you could bet Yato would make a question. He kind of reminded her of a little kid that was just discovering the world for the first time.
“
“Okay, but what about-“ the conversation in the garden shed was interrupted by the sound of a firetruck siren.
“That’s the 3rd one this week.” Sakura sighs. “My master says that some gods have been causing suffering to humans to amuse themselves since the amount of dedicated believers have dropped and with it the amount of things for them to do, that’s why there has been an increase in tragedies in the last couple of years.” She explained.
“That’s awful.” Yato pointed out.
“I know! How heartless can one be to call the killing of humans a game? Those gods are horrible monsters. The world would be better without them.” Sakura expressed her frustration.
“Sorry,” Sakura apologized after a sour and tense pause, “I just-”
“It’s ok, you don’t have to explain” Yato suddenly interrupts as his voice crack in the process. “I feel the same way.”
-
“Anything interesting happened today, Mizuchi?” a young looking man with almond colored hair dressed in a dark Yukata asked as he cooked some miso soup.
“Nothing much, Father.” A little girl with short dark hair dressed in a white kimono sat by the table, waiting for said miso soup. “Bishamonten-sama has lost 2 more shinki to god’s greatest secret, Takemikazuchi-sama is still trying to get a blessed hafuri, and Ebisu-sama might reincarnate soon again.”
“What about our Yaboku dear?” the man asked over his shoulder.
“He’s been going to Tenjin-sama’s shrine quiet a lot lately. I think I’ve seen him talking to a shrine maiden a few times. She goes by the name of Sakura.”
“Is he now?” Father halts everything that he’s doing for a brief second.
Father has been aware for the longest time that his son spends his time in different shrines whenever he has free time. Even though Yaboku thinks his father doesn’t know, he knows but simply decides to turn a blind eye to it as long as his Yaboku stays obedient to him.
But it is quiet surprising that Yaboku has spent most of his time in Tenjin’s shrine, even more so now that its winter time. He usually spends winter time at Binbougami’s shrine.
“Mizuchi dear, could you tell Yaboku to come visit me next time you see him? I have something I need him to take care of.”
-
Yato visits Sakura. Sakura is busy setting up some extra lanterns and some other decorations in the stone stairway. Sakura explains that New Year’s is coming and along with it a lot of humans visit the shrine as well.
“Where are you going to be during all of this?” Yato asked sternly, something felt out of place for the child-like curious Yato that Sakura knew.
“Probably near Tenjin-sama, why?” Sakura wondered
“No reason.” Yato’s response was sharp in the tongue. “I have some business I have to attend to in Kyoto so I won’t be seeing you until after New Year’s, okay?” He asked but it felt like it didn’t matter what Sakura answered in returned.
Both Sakura and Yato briefly said their farewells and just like that Yato left. Sakura made a mental note to ask Yato once he returns and seems less on edge to ask him what happened that made him act so out of character.
-
It finally was New Year’s Eve. Everyone’s visiting the shrine. Families with their children and elderly. Some couples; young love, old love, friend groups, you name it. Sakura was loving every second. She loved being close by humans, there’s something about their joy that just feels amazing.
Sakura had been sent to the entrance on her master’s orders. And just when people were starting to pray. But she can’t complain much, at least now she is surrounded by humans and enjoying the happy chattering they have amongst themselves instead of being stuck next to her master hearing the same jokes he makes every year.
As she walked there was a sudden screams interrupts any and all gleeful chat. Everyone starts walking towards where the scream came from. On the road, just before entering the shrine perimeters. A man had fainted and looked like he had a seizure and judging by the reaction of his wife, it looked like she had just seen a ghost.
People gathered around the married couple trying to wonder what just had taken place, all the while some other called the emergency line.
As all of this was unfolding Sakura knew she had to rush to her master and tell him the incident that had just taken place, but as she was turning back she caught a glimpse of a familiar black hair head and a dark yukata.
Yato?
That didn’t make sense, he said he wouldn’t be in the city by this time around. Her curiosity got the best of her and she started following the man that had an extreme resemblance to the Yato-gami she knew.
“Stop!” Sakura yells as she’s lead to the back side of the shrine, where she met Yato the first time. She notice that she’s out of ear’s range of anyone so she decides to finally test out her theory.
“Yato, wait!” the male figure pauses. Frozen in place but with his back still facing her. “It’s you, isn’t it?” Sakura didn’t need an answer. The hesitation in that man’s actions told her enough.
Yato slowly turned around, looking like a kid full of guilt. Sakura noticed he was holding a katana-like weapon but this one looked odd, like it was made of water.
“I don’t understand. Why are you here? You said you wouldn’t be here!” She questioned him to no avail. Yato remained quiet, eyes glued to the floor unable to face her. “Why… why are you acting this way? And why do you have a weapon? Did you have something to do with that man?”
Sakura was furious and frustrated and upset. It didn’t help that Yato still wasn’t looking at her but rather was very focused on the dead and muddy grass under his sandals.
Sakura noticed Yato say something under his breath and as soon as he does his katana-like weapon transforms into a beautiful young girl with short dark hair.
‘He has a shinki’ Sakura realizes.
“Hello! So you are the famous Sakura!” the little girl gleefully greets Sakura, “I’m Hiiro! I’m sure Yaboku has told you all about me.”
“Ya…boku?” Sakura whispers in disbelief towards Yato as he looks like a deer in headlights, still unable to look at her. To say Sakura was confused was an understatement. With just one sentence she had more questions than what she could actually think of. “Yato. Who is this?” unable to put her thoughts into words, Sakura decided to focus on the first thing that confused her.
Yato tries to find his voice, tries to answer Sakura but the knot in his throat is too big that any time he opens his mouth to say something, anything, nothing comes out.
“Come on Yaboku, you didn’t tell her who I was? Some brother you are.” The girl that answers instead. “I’m Hiiro. I’m Yaboku’s shinki and sister!”
“Why does she keep calling you Yaboku?” Sakura carefully questions Yato, as if she’s walking on eggshells that could turn into glass shards any second. Sakura noticed that Yato looked beyond scared.
“He didn’t tell you? His name is Yaboku.” Hiiro once again answers in Yato’s stead. She turns to look at Yato, “don’t tell me you didn’t tell her.” Yato looks like he wants to run away even though he is frozen in place.
“You’re the yaboku?” Sakura seeks confirmation from the man himself even though she doesn’t need to hear anything else. “All this time I thought that- that you- and I thought that we-“ a rush of fury clouds Sakura’s thoughts leaving her speechless.
“I- I can explain!” Yato stumbles with his words, desperately trying to gain his voice back.
“So you used me to choose your victims? Did I lead you to your victims?” Sakura questions in disbelief.
“No!” Yato frantically tries to get a word in “Let me explain, I-“
“And you even lied to me about who you were! You deceived me!” by this time Sakura was yelling at the top of her lunges
“Yes- I mean no! Sakura you got to listen to me-“
“Don’t. Keep my name out of your filthy mouth. I can’t believe I ever considered you a friend.” Sakura emotionlessly says as she wraps her arms around herself and leaves.
Yato reaches a hand out towards the leaving figure of Sakura trying to call out to her but gives up shortly after seeing as there is nothing he could say to make her stay.
-
“Yaboku. You’ve been like this for months now. Its time you snap out of it.” Hiiro pushes Yato’s shoulder as he’s laying on his side looking out to the garden.
Hiiro would be lying if she said she wasn’t surprised at Yaboku’s unusual behavior. They had gone out several times now on Father’s command but whenever they did Yaboku looked so miserable that she actually felt bad for him.
“How about we go to play? That always cheered you up!” Still no answer from his brother. “Sigh. What can I do to cheer you up? Would me calling you Yato like that Sakura girl did do any good?”
Hiiro noticed that as soon as she suggested the idea Yaboku’s face had a hit of emotion for the first time since that night.
“I’ll call you that if you want me to but you have to tell me, otherwise I won’t know. Hiiro tried once again to get Yaboku to say something.
It was close, she could feel it. Yaboku looked like he really wanted to say something but just like it had happened so many times now he got caught up in so much hesitation that he gave up in whatever idea he was about to share.
But this time she almost had it and she wouldn’t let it slip away. “Look, it’s obvious you miss this Sakura girl and I could tell that she genuinely cared about you so she probably misses you too so why don’t you go talk to her?”
Hiiro was right, all that time spent with Sakura was something both of them enjoyed and if he was missing her this much it was very possible that she was missing him back. But did he had any right to go back to her? After he lied to her so much? Yato didn’t deserved her forgiveness, didn’t deserve her time or her kindness.
But she deserves an explanation and an apology. Yato thought to himself.
And with that he got up and left.
-
It was a day near the end of spring. Sakura couldn’t really tell what day it was, every day had felt the same since that night. The only thing that made the day different from other days is that now she was sweeping the Sakura blossoms instead of shoveling snow.
At first Sakura was furious. She felt angry and betrayed. After a few weeks she felt just upset and used. After that she simply felt sad and lonely. With all the time Sakura had to think she understood that she was in no position to judge a god and she also understood that it was unfair of her to cut all communication with Yaboku-gami as if they had never known each other ever. She wished she could talk to him.
As Sakura is taking the last basket of fallen sakura blossoms to the trees and bushes at the back of the shrine for disposal she sees Yato standing by the same place she first met him. That time she confused him for a bear.
“What are you doing here?” Sakura kept her voice firm and emotionless even though she felt otherwise.
“I just came here to apologize for everything I’ve put you through” Yato starts as he hands Sakura some purple hyacinths.
Sakura takes them with a shocked and hesitant but pleased expression.
“I asked the flower shop lady and she said that purple hyacinths mean deep sorrow and regret. That if I wanted to make it clear how sorry I was these were the ones to give.” Yato explains and then continues, “I’m sorry for lying to you. For not being honest about everything. For being a coward. But most importantly for being Yaboku.”
It’s not every day that someone apologizes for their existence so Sakura waited for Yato to explain further before she said anything in return.
“I know I’m the worst of the worst. I kill innocents and I don’t show regret. I destroy and taint all the beautiful things in the world for my own selfish reasons. But I promise you that the me you knew, the Yato you knew, wasn’t an act.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me, Yaboku. But please forgive Yato, he is a little stupid and naïve and new to all this being a good god thing but I promise that he means well and he’s trying his best.”
Sakura takes a moment to consider his words. “So what Im understanding is that you want to be the Yato-gami I know?”
Yato only nods.
“Then I suppose I’ll accept Yato’s apology” Sakura pauses as Yato’s face lights up, “but only if he promise me that he’ll give it his all to become the Yato I know he can be.”
Summary: Nora is living her best life by being the normal middle school student that she always longed to be with her new friends and her two parents that love her so much.
WARNING: This story makes mention of abuse, suicide and suicidal thoughts. Individuals suffering from anxiety, depression and/or suicidal thoughts may not have a safe experience reading this. Viewer discretion is advised.
Thank you @noragamibigbang for organizing this.
See my partner’s ( @maybemacdc ) wonderful artwork that goes along with this!
Get up.
I hear the faint sound of an alarm clock, its signals the start of my day. I know I need to get up but the warmth of my bed and the peace in my bedroom cuddles me in a soundless lullaby.
Get up now.
The cold morning air hits my skin as I reach my arm out of my covers to turn off the alarm making me a bit more aware of myself than before but not enough. I decide to curl up in my bed once more, savoring the cozy air that my blankets trapped during the night.
You’re going to be late.
As I finish rubbing off the sleep from my eyes and brushing off the black hair strand stuck in my mouth I peak my head out of the covers. While staring into the celling, waiting for the moment I have enough courage to leave my warm bed, I hear two calm knocks on my doorframe like there were right on cue.
“Good morning love, come help me with breakfast when you’re ready~” I hear my mom call out as she walks away from the doorframe.
I sit up on my bed and I admire the sunrays peak through my window. Little particles of dust dancing in the stationary air as they bathe in the sunlight.
I walk over to my closet and change into my freshly clean school uniform. It’s your typical sailor middle school uniform with the red bow tie, white shirt with a blue collar and a matching blue skit to go with it. I make sure I wash it every night so it dries overnight. I briefly enjoy the softness of the fabric as I straighten the skirt with my hands, getting rid of any wrinkles that were created when I put it on.
Now that I’m dressed, I head over to the mirror. I stare back at my reflection, my messy from sleep black hair begging to be brushed.
My hair has always been pretty boring. It has no color and no texture, not to mention that its so short that I can’t do any fun hair styles with it. Not that I have tried any. Maybe I can try something today?
As I think that, I open a box of ribbons I’ve been collecting for years but never worn. I first try on a big red bow, I then try a blue one, and then a bright pink ribbon but they all make me look stupid. This is stupid.
You’re stupid.
I finish trying on my last ribbon which is a white thin ribbon. This one I put it across my head like a hair band. It looks okay I guess but what would people say? I bet they wouldn’t stop pointing it out and making fun of me.
“That looks cute! Are you wearing that?” I get startled by my dad’s voice. I turn around to see him frozen in his tracks as he was walking pass my bedroom door.
“I’m not sure…?” I tried to say no but something about his loving and warming smile told me that I wanted to hear his reply to my hesitation.
“You should” he simply said and then left.
Dad would never lie to me and if he thinks that I look cute with it then I guess the ribbon isn’t that stupid.
Maybe I should wear it.
I think I will.
--
After deciding to leave the ribbon on and finish getting reading for school, I head downstairs and help my mom by setting the table while she prepares breakfast. I see my dad sitting on the TV-couch with his laptop and a bunch of work documents scattered all over the coffee table. We all are busy with our morning tasks while the morning local news is playing on the background.
First it was politics news but I’m too young to care and stress about that yet so I don’t really pay attention to it. Then it’s the bad story news which this time was something about how the police just arrested an abusive father who hurt his kids physically and mentally.
What a way to start the morning. Did the news anchors really need to say such graphic and gruesome details?
As always a feel-good story gets told right after, this time is about some rescued stray-kitty-siblings that were adopted by this high school girl or something, I honestly didn’t pay enough attention to it, I couldn’t stop thinking about the prior story.
I try to picture it but I can’t imagine my dad turning violent on me and doing me harm, how could any dad do that to his kids? The idea of not only not having my mom but also getting physically harmed by my dad made me feel nauseous.
“Darling. Stop playing with your food, you’re going to be late.” My mom snaps me out of my dark train of thought.
That’s right, my parents are both here and they will never hurt me no matter what. They love me and will protect me. I don’t have to worry about any of that. But I actually do worry because I’m about to be late if I don’t hurry up and eat. And with that I devour my food as fast as I can without getting a stomach ache.
--
“Ittekimasu!” I yell at my mom as I close the front door feeling the cool but not cold spring air hit my skin.
“Itterasshai!” I hear my mom faintly yell back to me.
I head down the streets on my way to school. As I walk I take in my surroundings; I hear some birds singing, some cars driving by, some other kids heading to school and some old lady gossip. I pay extra close attention to the gossip. Ever since I started walking to school on my own I realized that I didn’t know much about the world outside of my notebooks so this is the only way I keep up with the world beside the morning news my dad puts every other day.
Today’s gossip isn’t the usual though. The ladies are also talking about that horrible gruesome story the local morning news covered, I hear them talk among themselves how they actually knew the wife before she committed suicide.
“I don’t think she did” one of them comments while looking over her shoulder as if she was about to say her most guarded secret, “and with the most recent news I’m pretty sure he killed her.” She finishes while nodding her head as a matter of fact.
Gasps roar among the ladies and I find myself gawking at the possibility as well.
“He wouldn’t do that” one interrupts the buzzing gossiping that had been unleashed. “The husband was really in love. She was his whole world. I wouldn’t be surprise if he went crazy with grief because of her death.” She tries to defend the man from the accusation of killing his own wife.
The ladies continue their gossiping but by now I’m too far to hear it anymore. My thoughts remain stuck in that conversation while I make my way to school. A husband so overwhelmed with grief that he took it out on his own flesh and blood that he raised since they were babies.
Imagine being the kids, they were around my age if I recall correctly. Just thinking about how I could be living that nightmare makes me feel sick to my stomach. Not only were they dealing with the loss of their mother, but also the loss of their father. The pain and the fear they must have felt while seeing their dad turn into that monster as the days went by. The uncertainty of being chosen as the punching bag that day. The hopelessness and loneliness they must have felt.
Thinking about it almost feels too real. I feel my palms become sweaty and my heartbeat drowning any noise from the outside world. I urge myself to take in deep breaths and to remember that that is not my life. That my dad is not like that.
Thank the gods that my dad is not like that.
--
I arrive to school and I see Nana and her group waving at me, waiting for me at the front gate. They tell me to call them my friends but I’m not used to having those yet. You see, I’ve always focused on school and academics first and I never gave the idea of having friends even a consideration so this is all really new to me.
Nana is my favorite of the 3, she’s the one I can easily talk to. Turns out she and I are pretty similar in the sense that we both like to be right and get in fights because of it. Of course, she gets into physical ones while I only do intellectual ones…. for the most part. Look, it wasn’t my fault that one time with Yukine.
Sure, I did throw in the first punch but he started it when he said I copied from him. Well, he really didn’t said it, but he insinuated it and if you ask me that’s more than enough reason to get punched. Besides I would never copy him. I don’t need his second-best-in-school answers because I have my own first-best-in-school answers, so ha!
According to him he caught me “starring” at him “several” times which is not true. Why would I stare? Maybe he was in my field of vision but that doesn’t even make sense because just the sight of him is annoying, it always has been. Ever since we were 6 with his “I’m going to one-up you” attitude he always had with me. Ugh, so annoying!
And there’s nothing about him worth looking at either. There’s nothing eye-catching about physique like his unusual golden locks. And why on earth would I stare at someone who is so focused in whatever test question he’s answering that you can’t help but admire his soft expression as he solves the math problem? It doesn’t make sense.
It kind of does.
Whatever.
But all that is in the past now and if I’m being honest I’m really happy I fought with Yukine. Because of that fight I met Nana and her fraternal twin brother Shiigun and I’m also closer to Yukine now than before. My life has definitely become a lot more fun than before.
Thanks to Yukine’s better social skills I get better along with everyone in school including teachers and staff. I really like that about him. I think that’s the main reason why he is so nice to me too. I really admire him for it.
Yukine and I are still rivals though, don’t get me wrong. We are still argue and fight but now we know each other a little bit better so we know that we don’t have to be better than the other at everything. Even though I will always better than him in academics even he says otherwise. I’ll let him have his spotlight with social stuff.
--
The lunch bell rings and I immediately take out my study notebook and start studying for history, the exams are next week and I need to be the best. I would prefer to do homework right now but there isn’t enough time to properly do it so a quick overview of history will do for now. I can always do homework in the comfort of my home where no one can bother or distract me.
“-chan you need to give it a rest. It’s not good for you.” Nana interrupts my study time as she rests her hand over my notes to take my attention.
“Both you and Yukine are overkills, I swear you guys are the biggest nerds in the whole school- no, the whole world!” Shiihgun has a talent to sting me where it hurts. I know he doesn’t mean it in a mean way but I’ve always been insecure about how I’m perceived by others and he doesn’t help one bit.
I try to laugh it off as I’ve seen Yukine do it before since I’m guessing that’s what I’m supposed to do. I hope my laugh seems genuine and not painful or forced. Please, don’t let my discomfort show.
Yukine turns my way as we’re laughing off Shiigun’s mean joke. I guess acting isn’t my thing because as soon as our eye meet he casually makes his way to my desk, leans in (invading my personal space if you ask me) and in a whispers tells me that he thinks it’s pretty cool of us to be the biggest nerds of the whole world. If the coolest kid in school says so then I guess we are pretty cool.
I realize that I’m too distracted to focus back on studying and Nana has a point I need the break, so I guess I’ll take her advice and rest during lunch time. As I start putting my notebooks away I realize that I forgot to pack my bento box. I guess I was too distracted when I left home this morning.
“Eeh?! You forgot your bento?” I wanted to pretend that I didn’t forget my bento, that I wasn’t looking for it and that I wasn’t hungry but apparently once again my acting skills failed me because now Nana saw right through me.
“I didn’t forget it. I’m trying to eat less.” I poorly try to act casually. Maybe I should stop acting.
“Here. Have one.” Yukine offers me one of his onigiri. “I always bring enough to share.” He reassures me as he notice my hesitation.
I reach my hand out to take the onigiri, as I do I start smelling a scent. A scent with the smell of… toothpaste? That’s weird.
I take a bite of the onigiri and I’m reminded of that winter afternoon where Yukine sneaked freshly made onigiri from his home to share with me. I remember how we ate them under a bridge while I did paper boats out of leaves and trash that I found under the bridge. I remember that I was feeling upset for some reason, what was the reason? Something to do with my dad? But…. I wasn’t even friends with Yukine in winter.
This doesn’t make sense.
I shake off the confusion and decide to focus on the argument Nana is having with Yukine about who would win in a physical fight. I would bet this onigiri that Nana would beat Yukine.
--
After a long day in school where I couldn’t study as much as I would have wanted I thought I would have gone straight home to study everything that I couldn’t during the day but instead I’m walking in the direction of the river bank on my way to play badminton with Nana, her brother and Yukine. As I was getting ready to head home Nana stopped me and asked me to come with them.
I wasn’t sure at first if I should go but Yukine told me that if second best in school was taking some time to have fun then the best could also do the same.
On our way to the river bank I try to make some casual conversation with Yukine so I ask him what made them invite me to come along with them.
“We always wanted to invite you- well, I always insisted on inviting you. But you always seems busy.” Yukine explains.
“I was also busy today.” I challenged his logic.
“But not busy enough to say no.” he retorted with a cheeky attitude. After I gave him a look with an eyebrow raised he continued “But also last week this homeless creepy dude approached us asking if he could be our fourth player so we want to avoid him getting any ideas.”
“Was the dude in his twenties, had black hair, bright blue eyes, and wore a smelly sweaty dark track suit?” the image of the dude suddenly popped in my head with such a clarity that I had to ask.
Yukine looked at me with an extremely puzzled look. “No… Where did you get that from? Is there someone like that where you live?”
Now that I think about it, the man I just describe isn’t anyone that I know or seen. I wonder where did I get that mental image in my head. I must have seen him on TV.
“I don’t know..”
--
As we’re approaching the river bank we make a quick stop for snacks. The store where we stopped by is owned by a very lovely and young married couple. Yukine tells us that he sometimes works here on weekends helping move the heavy stuff and because of that he gets free snacks whenever he comes by.
“Yuki! You came!” A young lady with bright pink hair yells out in excitement as she rushes to bear-hug Yukine. I’m guessing that’s one of the owners.
“Yuki! Great timing! Can you help out this Saturday? The roof needs to be repaired.” A scary looking man asks while he gets the young lady off Yukine.
It seems that Nana and Shiigun also know this odd couple because it takes them no time to start chatting amongst themselves. Because of that I start doing what I usually do and entertain myself with whatever catches my eye.
I first focus on the discount signs they have scattered in different parts of the background, I then notice how they have some fresh fruit as well but what really catches my eye is the magazine and newspaper shelf they have, one usually doesn’t see those anymore and even less in a small store such as this one.
I start reading the magazine covers and I eventually drift to the headlines. As soon as I do I feel my heart drop.
It’s that news again.
To be fair, it’s to be expected. It was in the morning news after all. But that doesn’t make it any better. While I read that particular newspaper I notice that there’s more details about that story than what I had already heard in the street gossip and in the morning news. Now I’m learning that the man actually killed the daughter who was my age and the older brother manage to run away and he was the one that call the authorities.
Props to the journalist that wrote this thought because it feels so real that it feels like I’m actually that girl that got killed. Good thing that my father is a sane person, that my mother is alive and well and that I don’t actually have a brother.
“-chan, they are talking to you.” For the third time today I get startle back into reality. I turn around to see Nana who grabbed my shoulder to get my attention.
“What?” I asked confused turning to look at the pink hair lady who I guess was the one that talked to me.
“Say hi to Yato-chan for me!” She excitedly and with confidence said as she waved us goodbye.
Yato-chan?
“Bye Kofuku! Bye Daikoku! Thanks for the football!” Yukine yells back as we leave the store owners flirting to each other.
I try to question Kofuku’s comment but between everyone else already walking away, the already said goodbyes and my confusion I couldn’t say anything. Why did she talk to me like she knew me? Why did no one else think that was weird? And who is Yato-chan?
--
We arrive at the river bank and Shiigun and Yukine start playing with the football apparently Daikoku gave Yukine while Nana and I set up the badminton net. Nana instructs me where to stand with the other side of the net and then teaches me how to anchor the net on the grass.
“Come on, guys. We’re ready.” Nana calls out as she goes to the bags she and Shiigun carried out here to take out the rackets and the bird so we could start playing a match. As she calls out I finish anchoring the net to the grass. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t having fun being out here with my friends, just hanging out. I might even say that this is more fun that history homework.
Might.
I approach Nana and Yukine who were already tossing a coin to choose who got what side of the net. Shiigun had gone to retrieve the ball that had been accidentally kicked far.
“Look out!” I hear Shiigun panic at the top of his lungs followed by a hit to my head that knocked me down so hard and fast that I didn’t get a chance to do anything other than fall like a wood plank. My vision went black, my consciousness faded as I heard Nana and Yukine faintly scream my name.
--
Get up.
I hear a high pitched ring in my ear, the throbbing headache bringing me back to my senses. I know I need to get up but a piercing pain in my back freezes all my movements. The hard cold floor isn’t doing any favors either.
Get up now.
The cold wind hits my skin as I reach my arm up to feel my head. I feel a warm liquid gushing through somewhere in my skull but I can’t really feel exactly where. I wish I could become more aware of myself than before but between the sharp pain in my back and the dizziness this headache is giving me I decide that I should probably go back to sleep and not think about the pain.
You’re going to die.
A jolt of electricity rushes through my spine. My eyes shoot open as if I were to die if I kept them close for a second longer. My body is screaming in pain as I try to sit upright.
Between the grunts and cries of pain that scape my mouth my eyes start noticing things that… I’m pretty sure they weren’t there before.
There’s a man standing over me. He looks like he’s in his late teens even though he feels older. As he’s wiping his sweat and what it looks like blood from his jaw with the back of his left hand I notice that his hair resembles a lot to an almond.
He doesn’t look injured where he’s wiping the blood so… whose blood is it?
I glance at his right hand and I see him holding a long black staff-looking thing. The staff is thin and black with a spiral form on one of its ends. It looks very rigid even though it feels like it can be bend and molded if it so desired. I notice that the same end that looks alive was dripping with blood.
My blood?
I turn back to this man’s face and I realize that he’s been looking directly at me this all time. His eyes move to focus on the different parts where I feel the most pain as if he were looking at something worth admiring. He then turns his eyes and looks directly at mine. His expression turns into what an angry but disappointed father would look like. As he did that I felt disgusted at myself. Is he upset that I got injured? But he did this to me!
That’s right. Father did this. I started recalling everything that happened before I lost conciseness. Memories come flooding back increasing the pain that I feel from the headache. After I had arrived with Hiyori to where Father and Yato were fighting- Father was so angry. He was so… ready to kill Yato. It felt terrifying but also familiar. It felt like those times where Father punished me for Yato’s behavior but somehow this time it was worse.
I don’t know what came over me when I rushed in and pushed Yato out of the way. Maybe I just wanted to return the favor of all those times he took the bullet for me or maybe I didn’t want to see him get hurt again at the hands of Father. Maybe I just didn’t want to deal with Hiyori after the fight, maybe I just wanted someone to get the life that they wish to have.
But now look at me. I don’t even know if Yato is even alive, I left Hiyori’s side and now I’m even wishing the end of this endless torture. Everything I do, everything I am is a waste.
Pathetic.
Hiyori said I’m allowed to make mistakes, that I’m human. I’m not and I never was. The bare thought of making a mistake and being looked down upon eats me up inside until my outer shell breaks leaving me no other place else to hide.
I wish I could let myself believe that excuse, I wish I could believe in myself, believe that it’s okay to not be perfect, that its okay to fail, that its okay to not be okay. But the fact that I fail at even accepting the reality that I can’t be perfect goes to show how big of a failure I truly am.
I wish I could blame him for making me think this way but this is all on me and that would have never changed.
I did try to change, that’s why I’m here right now dying at the hands of the one I once called father. I did try to be the person Hiyori wanted me to be. Be myself. I really liked her because of that. That’s why I here instead of her.
Ironic isn’t it? The person I hate the most, the person I fear the most, is the very person I never want to let down. Maybe that’s why I’m always so scared whenever he's near. Scared to be asked, scared of a conversation, scared of not doing what’s expected of me, scared of not being enough, scared of my own shadow, scared of myself.
Maybe I don’t hate him, maybe I just hate me.
I feel whatever this life I’ve had vanishing from existence, not even leaving a dead corpse behind. It’s pretty unfair right? I got two shots at life. Two opportunities. Most don’t even get one. But not me, I got two chances at live and in both I was unwanted, despised and casted aside. Maybe third time’s the charm? If there’s even a third time.
If.
“If only” right? Those are the famous words. If only there was a third chance at life. If only I needed just the first one. If only I didn’t die so young. If only Sakura didn’t showed up. If only she didn’t succumb to god’s greatest secret. If only I had instead.
If only the gods treated me better, if only I didn’t become a nora. If only someone wanted me. If only Yato didn’t rebel. If only I was a better sister to Yato. If only Yato didn’t replace me with Yukine. If only I was less judgmental of Yukine. If only Yukine and I had met while we were both still alive. If only I had friends. If only I went to school. If only I had met my parents. If only father didn’t take me in. If only father accomplished his revenge sooner.
If only I was allowed to live like a normal girl. If only I was born.
Seek peek of my second @noragamibigbang fanfiction work.
AU where Tenjin never fired Tamanone.
(Note: Adachitoka never bothered to come up with Tamanone's Tenjin given name so I'm following their example by also avoid the issue and calling her Sakura instead.)
Me after binging the Noragami anime and deciding to read the manga: I wonder how Yato will react to finding out his dad kissed Hiyori, teehee, this is so scandalous
Me after binging the Noragami manga and realizing Hagusa’s vessel form is a person because Yukine himself is the weapon in Father’s attack against Yato:
