Contact 18: Involute Memory
Chapter 18: He never sees anything, but he feels things and he knows things.
The first time Yuuri has the dream, he wakes up before he can figure out what's going on. When his eyes snap open, he just lays there, alone on his giant bed, mind fiercely turning to decode the strange subconscious world he had witnessed.
In his dream, Yuuri had been lucid - that is, he had known he was dreaming. But where his usual dreams were a jumble of surreal images, in this one there had been nothing to see. It was all just... darkness. Until. He felt. A touch.
Yuuri shakes his head to rid himself of these thoughts. The human mind is a weird place, he thinks. Sometimes your mind plays tricks on you, he rationalizes. If he were honest with himself, though, the other presence in the dream had felt like Conrad.
Yawning, pushing the covers back, Yuuri carefully pads out of the darkened room and down the hall. He knocks on Conrad's door and slips inside just as the other man is about to get up.
"Yuuri? Is there something wrong?"
"Nothing," he says, slipping under the covers. It's a bit of a tight fit, but he doesn't mind because the bed is warm.
"All right, then," Conrad whispers into his ear. "Good night."
He feels Conrad's bangs brushing across his brow and down to his cheeks, the hairs tickling just a bit as Conrad leans in to press a chaste kiss to his lips.
"Night..."
Yuuri closes his eyes and, as he drifts off, he feels Conrad pulling him closer, resting a hand on the small of his back.
The next few times Yuuri has the dream, it gets clearer and clearer until he can no longer pretend that this is something ordinary.
He never sees anything, but he feels things and he knows things. Lately, he has started hearing things too. There will be the patter of rain or an indistinct conversation in the background. In the most recent dream, he could smell fresh baked bread. The dreams are now much longer as well. They're just going to increase in intensity, so Yuuri is wary when he goes to bed this night, one week after they began. His mind is preoccupied. He tosses, turns, considers seeking out Conrad, but then decides not to bother anyone with his embarrassing neediness. Finally, Yuuri falls asleep.
In the beginning, there is a comforting warmth much like his mother. This is joined by another indistinct presence - older, male, fatherly. Yuuri realizes that he's sensing a family scene, and true enough, there are suddenly two boys to play with. One is older and one is younger, and together they flip pages and jump scenes in this book. It is... like a book, he thinks. Like an audio book.
The three children play together. There's a jump. The older boy has died in an accident and tears are coursing down his cheeks as he comforts the younger brother. Is he himself here? No, he just somehow knows what it feels like to be in the body of this novel's protagonist. Before he can dwell anymore on this, the dream gets clearer yet again. He - Yuuri - no, the protagonist, is at last about to speak.
"Hush now. Brother would not have wanted to see you cry like this. Be strong for him, Delchias."
The voice that comes out is a soft, soothing alto. It is Suzanna Julia's voice.
Yuuri frantically scrabbles for purchase. He's terrified, sinking into Julia's memories while futilely trying to claw his way out of the sleepy bog. All the while, scenes from Julia's life are playing out in front of him. He raises his hands to clap them over his ears so that he hears nothing but the panicked beating of his heart and the echoes of his shaky gasps.
He has to get out of here! He's not Julia! His soul doesn't have those kinds of memories, does it? Yuuri doesn't want to know all the intimate details of someone else's life. He doesn't want to be an intruder in this way, even if the person he's spying on is, in a way, himself.
Still in his dream body, Yuuri sinks to his knees, trying his best to block out all of his senses. But it's only partially successful. He can block out the voices, but he can't stop automatically knowing what's going on when Julia touches something. The sensations of many, many different people leading him somewhere, the reverent brush of lips against the back of his hand as an elegant gentleman kneels before him... They blur in his mind as the real Yuuri slumps down in denial, shaking his head with its covered ears, "No, no..."
Yuuri comes screaming out of the abyss.
"Deep breaths, Shibuya. Stay with me now - your name is Shibuya Yuuri. Deep breaths."
There are hands on his shoulders holding him down. His vision is still blurry as he follows the instructions. When Yuuri has regained a semblance of control, he looks at Murata questioningly.
"Can you help me?" Yuuri cringes at how desperate he sounds, but if it's Murata, maybe...
"I'll try. We'll get you through this, okay?"
"Does anyone else know?"
"Not yet," Murata says.
The rest of the night is spent with Murata by his bedside, explaining to him how these memories work. Murata says that it's always the most recent past life that comes to him first, and then it's a journey backwards in time. He usually doesn't remember being Daikenja directly until sometime in his teenage years. Indirectly, of course, he knows of his origins through the other lives' memories within memories.
Yuuri repeats again and again how he doesn't want to see more of Julia's life. He is afraid to go back to sleep.
Murata tries to soothe him by saying that they'll plug up the leak. They'll staunch the flow before he starts remembering who came before. But wouldn't it be nice, Yuuri thinks, if they could gouge out the remnants of Julia in his soul?
When Yuuri assembles them all to explain what's happening to him, his insecurity gets the better of him and he half-expects Conrad to show some signs of being glad to have Julia back.
There is nothing like that, and he is somewhat relieved. Conrad is merely concerned that Yuuri might be in pain.
"Will you be all right, Yuuri? Would you like someone to stay with you?" Conrad throws a glance at Anissina. "Perhaps a sleeping draught?"
Anissina's eyes light up with unholy glee. "I have the perfect prescription! The Manic Insomniac One-Two-Knockout Fruit Punch will have you down for the count! It floats like a kotsuhizoku and stings like a bearbee! Not that bearbees sting."
"Uh... no thanks, Anissina," Yuuri says. "I'm afraid I might never wake up if I drank that."
"It's non-alcoholic." Anissina says this as if it actually means something, but it doesn't, or Yuuri thinks it doesn't. He's not quite sure, but it's still safest to decline the offer.
Yuuri continues his assurances to the others that he will be fine for the time being. He'll tell Murata straight away if things get worse. Meanwhile, Shinou, Ulrike, and even Gisela have joined in the effort to help with the cure, and they are getting close. Besides, the dreams are far from nightmares. Having them doesn't do harm to anything at all (except his sense of self, but this he does not say).
It's getting late, and Yuuri bids them all good night. Conrad is reluctant to leave. He walks Yuuri to his room, and hesitates at Yuuri's side once they are there. And then he says, "I love you for you."
That night, Yuuri dreams again. He is nearing the end of Julia's life, and as he is awash in Julia's memories of Conrad, and of Adelbert, and of Julia's choice... Yuuri comes to an understanding. Julia's passion was reserved for Adelbert. That is not the choice that Yuuri would make, but Yuuri is not Julia.
Reading his own soul is just like reading any other story. The reader and the narration are intimately entwined, but capable of differences of opinion; of differences in the perception of events. One is alive, moving forward in time, and the other has stopped. His past lives exist only as fleeting thoughts and memories. They are lines of smudged ink on spiritual paper.
And Yuuri finds that it's not bad at all, knowing who Julia was. Because she was herself, just as Yuuri is himself, and just as they, together, are one. Even if they are one soul, it is not only the soul that loves, but also the heart and the mind. And those, Yuuri is relieved to say, he has all to himself.
The first time Yuuri has the dream, he wakes up before he can figure out what's going on. When his eyes snap open, he just lays there, alone on his giant bed, mind fiercely turning to decode the strange subconscious world he had witnessed.
In his dream, Yuuri had been lucid - that is, he had known he was dreaming. But where his usual dreams were a jumble of surreal images, in this one there had been nothing to see. It was all just... darkness. Until. He felt. A touch.
Yuuri shakes his head to rid himself of these thoughts. The human mind is a weird place, he thinks. Sometimes your mind plays tricks on you, he rationalizes. If he were honest with himself, though, the other presence in the dream had felt like Conrad.
Yawning, pushing the covers back, Yuuri carefully pads out of the darkened room and down the hall. He knocks on Conrad's door and slips inside just as the other man is about to get up.
"Yuuri? Is there something wrong?"
"Nothing," he says, slipping under the covers. It's a bit of a tight fit, but he doesn't mind because the bed is warm.
"All right, then," Conrad whispers into his ear. "Good night."
He feels Conrad's bangs brushing across his brow and down to his cheeks, the hairs tickling just a bit as Conrad leans in to press a chaste kiss to his lips.
"Night..."
Yuuri closes his eyes and, as he drifts off, he feels Conrad pulling him closer, resting a hand on the small of his back.
The next few times Yuuri has the dream, it gets clearer and clearer until he can no longer pretend that this is something ordinary.
He never sees anything, but he feels things and he knows things. Lately, he has started hearing things too. There will be the patter of rain or an indistinct conversation in the background. In the most recent dream, he could smell fresh baked bread. The dreams are now much longer as well. They're just going to increase in intensity, so Yuuri is wary when he goes to bed this night, one week after they began. His mind is preoccupied. He tosses, turns, considers seeking out Conrad, but then decides not to bother anyone with his embarrassing neediness. Finally, Yuuri falls asleep.
In the beginning, there is a comforting warmth much like his mother. This is joined by another indistinct presence - older, male, fatherly. Yuuri realizes that he's sensing a family scene, and true enough, there are suddenly two boys to play with. One is older and one is younger, and together they flip pages and jump scenes in this book. It is... like a book, he thinks. Like an audio book.
The three children play together. There's a jump. The older boy has died in an accident and tears are coursing down his cheeks as he comforts the younger brother. Is he himself here? No, he just somehow knows what it feels like to be in the body of this novel's protagonist. Before he can dwell anymore on this, the dream gets clearer yet again. He - Yuuri - no, the protagonist, is at last about to speak.
"Hush now. Brother would not have wanted to see you cry like this. Be strong for him, Delchias."
The voice that comes out is a soft, soothing alto. It is Suzanna Julia's voice.
Yuuri frantically scrabbles for purchase. He's terrified, sinking into Julia's memories while futilely trying to claw his way out of the sleepy bog. All the while, scenes from Julia's life are playing out in front of him. He raises his hands to clap them over his ears so that he hears nothing but the panicked beating of his heart and the echoes of his shaky gasps.
He has to get out of here! He's not Julia! His soul doesn't have those kinds of memories, does it? Yuuri doesn't want to know all the intimate details of someone else's life. He doesn't want to be an intruder in this way, even if the person he's spying on is, in a way, himself.
Still in his dream body, Yuuri sinks to his knees, trying his best to block out all of his senses. But it's only partially successful. He can block out the voices, but he can't stop automatically knowing what's going on when Julia touches something. The sensations of many, many different people leading him somewhere, the reverent brush of lips against the back of his hand as an elegant gentleman kneels before him... They blur in his mind as the real Yuuri slumps down in denial, shaking his head with its covered ears, "No, no..."
Yuuri comes screaming out of the abyss.
"Deep breaths, Shibuya. Stay with me now - your name is Shibuya Yuuri. Deep breaths."
There are hands on his shoulders holding him down. His vision is still blurry as he follows the instructions. When Yuuri has regained a semblance of control, he looks at Murata questioningly.
"Can you help me?" Yuuri cringes at how desperate he sounds, but if it's Murata, maybe...
"I'll try. We'll get you through this, okay?"
"Does anyone else know?"
"Not yet," Murata says.
The rest of the night is spent with Murata by his bedside, explaining to him how these memories work. Murata says that it's always the most recent past life that comes to him first, and then it's a journey backwards in time. He usually doesn't remember being Daikenja directly until sometime in his teenage years. Indirectly, of course, he knows of his origins through the other lives' memories within memories.
Yuuri repeats again and again how he doesn't want to see more of Julia's life. He is afraid to go back to sleep.
Murata tries to soothe him by saying that they'll plug up the leak. They'll staunch the flow before he starts remembering who came before. But wouldn't it be nice, Yuuri thinks, if they could gouge out the remnants of Julia in his soul?
When Yuuri assembles them all to explain what's happening to him, his insecurity gets the better of him and he half-expects Conrad to show some signs of being glad to have Julia back.
There is nothing like that, and he is somewhat relieved. Conrad is merely concerned that Yuuri might be in pain.
"Will you be all right, Yuuri? Would you like someone to stay with you?" Conrad throws a glance at Anissina. "Perhaps a sleeping draught?"
Anissina's eyes light up with unholy glee. "I have the perfect prescription! The Manic Insomniac One-Two-Knockout Fruit Punch will have you down for the count! It floats like a kotsuhizoku and stings like a bearbee! Not that bearbees sting."
"Uh... no thanks, Anissina," Yuuri says. "I'm afraid I might never wake up if I drank that."
"It's non-alcoholic." Anissina says this as if it actually means something, but it doesn't, or Yuuri thinks it doesn't. He's not quite sure, but it's still safest to decline the offer.
Yuuri continues his assurances to the others that he will be fine for the time being. He'll tell Murata straight away if things get worse. Meanwhile, Shinou, Ulrike, and even Gisela have joined in the effort to help with the cure, and they are getting close. Besides, the dreams are far from nightmares. Having them doesn't do harm to anything at all (except his sense of self, but this he does not say).
It's getting late, and Yuuri bids them all good night. Conrad is reluctant to leave. He walks Yuuri to his room, and hesitates at Yuuri's side once they are there. And then he says, "I love you for you."
That night, Yuuri dreams again. He is nearing the end of Julia's life, and as he is awash in Julia's memories of Conrad, and of Adelbert, and of Julia's choice... Yuuri comes to an understanding. Julia's passion was reserved for Adelbert. That is not the choice that Yuuri would make, but Yuuri is not Julia.
Reading his own soul is just like reading any other story. The reader and the narration are intimately entwined, but capable of differences of opinion; of differences in the perception of events. One is alive, moving forward in time, and the other has stopped. His past lives exist only as fleeting thoughts and memories. They are lines of smudged ink on spiritual paper.
And Yuuri finds that it's not bad at all, knowing who Julia was. Because she was herself, just as Yuuri is himself, and just as they, together, are one. Even if they are one soul, it is not only the soul that loves, but also the heart and the mind. And those, Yuuri is relieved to say, he has all to himself.