Fanfiction: Blank Pages (Your Turn to Die)
I finished playing Chapter 3, Part 1-A of Your Turn to Die and promptly finished this fic I've had lying around for a while! No spoilers for chapter three, though; it just runs up to the end of chapter two.
This is very vaguely inspired by Final Fantasy Type-0, in that Type-0 is set in a world where nobody remembers the dead, and I've been looking for an excuse to steal that concept for AUs ever since I played it.
Title: Blank Pages
Fandom: Your Turn to Die
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: maybe a hint of Keiji/Sara
Wordcount: 2,600
Summary: “We thought we’d show some compassion,” Miley says. “If someone who’s important to you dies, your memories of them will be instantly erased.”
“Of course, you might think this game seems a tiny bit cruel,” Sue Miley says.
Keiji scratches his chin. “Don’t know where you’d get that idea.”
Miley’s grin widens. “So we thought we’d show some compassion. If someone who’s important to you dies, your memories of them will be instantly erased.”
What?
“No need to grieve; you can just move straight on with your lives!” She laughs. “Isn’t that great?”
-
Nao spends the whole of Mishima’s execution screaming herself hoarse. It’s almost more terrible than the sound of Mishima dying.
And then Mishima collapses onto the floor, and so does Nao, like someone cut her strings.
Sara can only stare.
This isn’t real, is it? It can’t be.
Nao raises her head. And then she gives a yelp of horror, and scrambles backwards, away from the body.
Sara wants to comfort her, somehow. Tell her it’ll be okay.
It won’t be. It already isn’t.
She looks over at Joe. He’s always been better at this kind of thing than her.
This kind of thing. Like she’s ever dealt with anything on this level before. Nao’s professor was just burned to death in front of her.
“Nao,” Joe says, quietly. “I, uh. I don’t know what to say.”
“Who... is that?” Nao asks, pointing with a trembling hand at Professor Mishima.
There’s a terrible silence.
-
Reko is the one who explains it to Nao. That Mishima was her teacher, that she obviously respected him, that Miley apparently wasn’t bluffing when she was talking about erasing memories.
Nao refuses to believe it. Shakes her head. She’s never seen him before.
She looks at Sara.
“I’m sorry,” Sara says. “It’s true.”
“No,” Nao says.
“He was with you when you were captured,” Sara says. “He’s been here the whole time. He didn’t just appear after the vote.”
“No,” Nao says. “This isn’t possible, it’s not real!”
It’s a feeling Sara’s been having herself. But they have to assume this is real. They don’t know why they’re here, but they’re here, and someone is killing them.
Nao takes a quick glance at Mishima’s body. It’s clear that she can’t look at it for long. “You - really? You all remember him?”
Reko puts an arm around her shoulders. “It’s fucked up. I wish I could tell you something else. But we’re not lying.”
“Who voted for him?” Joe asks.
“Not a good path to go down,” Keiji says, at the same time Nao says, quietly, “I don’t remember.”
Sara looks at her. “What?”
Nao is staring at the floor. “I don’t remember who I voted for.”
“You don’t?” Sara asks. It seems like the kind of thing that would stick in your mind.
Nao shudders. “I was really hoping you’d all say you didn’t remember either.”
“Wait,” Sara says. “Does that mean...?”
“I must have voted for him,” Nao says. “Right? I’m part of the reason he’s dead.”
“But you cared about him,” Sara says. “We could all see that.” And she’s lost her memories of Mishima; that makes it certain, right? “You wouldn’t have.”
But Nao didn’t get any votes. So they know she didn’t vote for herself.
She looks over at Joe, and she knows he’s thinking the same thing.
“The doll just said it was a test vote, anyway,” Joe says. “We didn’t know someone would actually die.”
-
Sara wakes in a bed; she doesn’t remember how she got there. Stares at the ceiling.
What happened?
They reached the Main Game. They were expected to pick someone to die, again. Kai was the victim, she remembers. Another person dead.
Did they ever work out who the Sacrifice was?
She doesn’t think so. But she’s still alive, as far as she can tell, so she guesses it wasn’t Kai.
Kai was the only one to die. Maybe the whole concept of the Sacrifice was a bluff. Just making everyone paranoid, making things more interesting for whoever’s benefiting from this sick game. Like when Miley pretended that collar was going to explode.
Whose collar was it, again?
It doesn’t matter. She needs to find out what her situation is.
-
Keiji’s outside the door when she opens it. Has he been waiting for her?
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Where are we?” Sara asks.
Keiji raises his eyebrows, with that half-smile of his. “Not one for small talk? Third floor. We’ve all got bedrooms. Rest if you need it.”
“I can’t rest,” she says. “Two of us are dead already. We need to stop this.”
“Two?” Keiji echoes.
Someone else...?
Kanna’s sister. Of course. Dead before this horrifying ‘memory erasure’ thing kicked in. Sara’s not sure whether Kanna or Nao is in the crueller situation.
Kanna’s sister. There hasn’t been anyone else, has there?
“There wasn’t a Sacrifice, right?” Sara asks.
Keiji looks at her for what feels like a moment too long.
“Doesn’t mean we can assume there won’t be one in the next game,” he says at last. “You want me to show you around the new floor?”
-
Reko doesn’t remember Alice.
It almost feels like nothing’s changed. It’s not like Reko ever mentioned Alice to them, before they actually found him. For a while after that, they were still pretending not to know each other.
From the outside, it’s just the same Reko they knew before Alice joined them. But there’s a gap in her life that nobody can see, not even herself. Sara can’t even imagine it.
And now there’s no way Sara will ever know more about their relationship as siblings. Reko is still alive, but there’s nobody left to ask.
Nobody forgot Kai, Sara keeps thinking. He wasn’t important enough to anyone here. Is it better that they remember him, or would it be kinder if someone had forgotten?
-
It somehow feels like Sara’s legs are too steady as she walks out onto the second Main Game’s grounds. Is she getting used to this? Has it somehow become normal, forcing herself through each new challenge and leaving a trail of corpses behind?
“Another Main Game,” Keiji says. He stands for a moment, hands in his pockets, and then he looks over at Sara. “You think you’ll remember me if I don’t make it through?”
It’s too personal a question. But she shouldn’t be surprised; he does seem to enjoy making her uncomfortable.
“Let’s not find out,” she says.
-
“I’m sorry,” Sara whispers, as the votes are displayed.
“No!” Sou shouts.
Kanna is crying, but she’s smiling, and somehow that makes Sara feel worse.
“I’ll kill all of you!” Sou snaps. “I won’t let you get away with this!”
“You won’t remember,” Keiji says, his voice so cold that Sara feels herself tense up.
-
Sara can’t breathe, watching Kanna’s execution. She was so young. She was so young. And Sara was the deciding vote.
She’s half-hoping that she’ll forget Kanna afterwards. Some evidence that she genuinely cared about this girl, that she made this decision out of love rather than brutal practicality.
But Kanna fades away in front of them, and Sou’s furious protests trail into confusion, and Sara’s memories stay clear. She pitied Kanna, but apparently she’s not going to be allowed to tell herself she loved her.
Kanna took the Sacrifice to save Sara’s life. It feels like it would be wrong to forget her. It feels worse to remember her.
It takes her a moment to tear her eyes away from the roses. To look over at Sou. He’s still staring up at Kanna’s body.
“I don’t remember her,” he says.
Keiji glances over at Sara. She can almost hear his voice: so much for the death threats.
Sou turns, and the look in his eye makes Sara go cold.
“Which means she was important to me,” he says, “and you killed her.”
-
Sou isn’t in the relaxation room. He isn’t in the ruined corridor.
He isn’t in Kanna’s trial room. A part of Sara was really expecting him to be. Would he even remember what that room means, though?
She doesn’t know what she’s going to do when she finds him. She just has to keep looking, because if she stops-
She’s shivering. When did that start?
If she stops, she’s going to have to think.
She sits on one of the beds. Lies down on her side, still fully dressed.
Is this the bed that killed Kanna’s sister? Or is it the one Kanna was trapped and terrified on, the one she escaped from, only to die a few days later?
“Sara?”
It’s Keiji. She tries to greet him, but the word gets caught and dies somewhere on its way.
“Not sure this is such a good place for a nap,” Keiji says. “Can you sit up for me?”
She was the final vote. It’s her responsibility. She killed Kanna; she killed Nao. But it’s worse than that.
Keiji puts a hand on her hunched shoulder, pushes her gently from her side onto her back. It reminds her of being restrained, being strapped down on a bed just like this one.
She scrambles up, knocks his hand away, pushes herself off the bed, breathing hard.
“Back with us?” Keiji asks.
Reko doesn’t remember Alice. And Sou doesn’t remember Kanna. And Nao didn’t remember Mishima.
And Nao was sacrificed.
There’s a chill creeping up from Sara’s gut, out to the rest of her body. She’s beginning to shake.
“Someone was the Sacrifice,” she says, quietly. “Weren’t they?”
“Oh?” Keiji asks, sitting down where she was lying a moment ago. “Didn’t realise you and Nao were that close.”
“Don’t do this to me,” Sara says. It’s hard to look at him, knowing he’s been acting like it never happened the whole time, but she forces herself to. “Someone else died in the first Main Game, didn’t they? It wasn’t just Kai.”
Keiji looks back at her, unreadable.
She can’t stop trying to think of who it could have been. She remembers her mom. She remembers her dad. Did she have any siblings? Are there any strange holes in her childhood memories?
“You shouldn’t have kept it from me,” she says.
He shrugs. “Didn’t seem like knowing would do you much good.”
She doesn’t want to ask. “Who was it?”
“Joe,” he says. “A friend of yours. From school, I think.”
It seems like the name should bring back her memories. It means nothing to her.
“Who was he?” she asks.
Keiji raises his eyebrows. “Thought I just answered that.”
“It’s not enough,” she says.
A friend of hers died? A friend of hers died, and she doesn’t remember him, it’s like he never existed? He must have died in front of her, and now she feels nothing when she hears his name?
It isn’t right. She has to fix it. She just doesn’t know how.
“Didn’t know him well,” Keiji says. “There’s only so much I can say.”
“I have to know,” Sara says, her voice almost breaking.
Should she try to talk to Reko about this, about Alice, about this strange common ground? But how do you talk about memories you don’t have?
Keiji shrugs. “He seemed like a nice kid. Tried to be wary. Wasn’t good at it. Lied to us in the Main Game, but he was the Sacrifice; can’t say I’d have been any better.” He pauses. “Anyone could see he cared about you.”
“And me?” Sara asks. It feels like a terrifying question. “How did I feel about him?”
“Harder to read,” Keiji says. “Just another thing that makes you interesting.”
So she doesn’t know how she felt about Joe. Maybe she was manipulating him. Maybe she threw aside his friendship and acted for her own ends. She’s learnt a lot about herself in this death game, and some of it is uglier than she could ever have expected.
But she can’t remember him. That’s proof that she cared, right?
Keiji digs into his pocket. “Don’t know if you’ll want this, but...”
He holds out a little dog keychain. Silly and cheap, but it’s kind of cute. Sara stares at it for a moment.
“Ryoko gave that to me,” she says. “My friend. Why do you have it?”
“Gin found it,” Keiji says. “Joe always wore it in his pocket. Guess you must’ve passed it to him.”
Is that true?
She can’t remember him. But she remembers this keychain. She wouldn’t have had it on her when she came here, so maybe it really was Joe’s.
She takes it from Keiji. It might as well be Joe; it’s all she has to tell her this person might have existed.
“How did he die?” she asks.
Keiji pauses. “Don’t think you need that.”
She isn’t going to back down. “How did he die?”
“It was fine,” Keiji says. “It was quick. About as good as a death can be.”
“Is that true?” It’s hard to believe it, with all she’s seen here.
Keiji shrugs. “Does it make a difference?”
-
Keiji leaves the room. Asks her to wait for him. “On the bed, if you like,” he adds, with a smile.
She waits against the wall.
Maybe that was his goal. Make the prospect of the bed so uncomfortable that she wouldn’t end up lying there, dwelling on her own First Trial, dwelling on Kanna’s. Maybe he was just being inappropriate. She’s spent enough time trying to analyse him.
How did she get out of her First Trial, anyway? She can’t remember. It feels like it should be memorable.
She looks down at the dog keychain in her hands.
Joe?
-
Keiji returns with a notebook. One of the blank books from the room where Sou found the laptop, she thinks. He’s holding it open, passes it to her.
It’s a sketch of a young man, grinning broadly. Black and white, but with notes and arrows showing what colours things should be: blue jacket, green tie, brown hair.
The clip in his hair looks familiar. Was-
Was Rio Ranger wearing it?
“Is this Joe?” Sara asks, looking sharply at Keiji.
Keiji nods, gestures for her to look back down.
“It’s really good,” Sara says, quietly. She couldn’t really believe he existed, this supposed friend she had no memory of. She can believe he exists now, seeing him in front of her like this. “Did you draw this yourself?”
“Used to practise a lot as a kid,” Keiji says. “I thought maybe I could get into the force through being a police artist. Wasn’t the route I took, in the end.”
“When did you do this?”
She starts flipping back through the book. Reko. Nao. Mishima, drawn in a little less detail than the others.
Sara. Drawn in more detail than the others, a few different poses. She stares into her own eyes.
“Just after Mishima,” Keiji says. “I saw what happened to Nao. Wanted to make sure I had something to remember everyone by, just in case.”
Sara considers her response for a moment. “I didn’t think you were so sentimental.”
“You might as well have it,” Keiji says. “Not sure what my chances of living through this are.”
“Nine point five percent,” Sara says.
Keiji laughs. “Guess so. I’m touched that you memorised it.”
She pages through the rest of it. She’s terrified, with every page turn, that she’ll come across another person she doesn’t remember. But it’s just Joe.
“You’re not in here,” she says. “How am I supposed to remember you?”
“You’re not,” Keiji says. “You’re supposed to forget me. If I can manage that, I’ll be satisfied.”
Sara looks up at him. He’s standing with his arms folded, watching her with that strange, unsettling fondness. She doesn’t know how she can feel so close to him when he always holds himself so distant.
If he’s killed, if he’s wiped out of her mind, at least he won’t be any more of a mystery.
“I think I probably will,” she says.
He smiles.
This is very vaguely inspired by Final Fantasy Type-0, in that Type-0 is set in a world where nobody remembers the dead, and I've been looking for an excuse to steal that concept for AUs ever since I played it.
Title: Blank Pages
Fandom: Your Turn to Die
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: maybe a hint of Keiji/Sara
Wordcount: 2,600
Summary: “We thought we’d show some compassion,” Miley says. “If someone who’s important to you dies, your memories of them will be instantly erased.”
“Of course, you might think this game seems a tiny bit cruel,” Sue Miley says.
Keiji scratches his chin. “Don’t know where you’d get that idea.”
Miley’s grin widens. “So we thought we’d show some compassion. If someone who’s important to you dies, your memories of them will be instantly erased.”
What?
“No need to grieve; you can just move straight on with your lives!” She laughs. “Isn’t that great?”
-
Nao spends the whole of Mishima’s execution screaming herself hoarse. It’s almost more terrible than the sound of Mishima dying.
And then Mishima collapses onto the floor, and so does Nao, like someone cut her strings.
Sara can only stare.
This isn’t real, is it? It can’t be.
Nao raises her head. And then she gives a yelp of horror, and scrambles backwards, away from the body.
Sara wants to comfort her, somehow. Tell her it’ll be okay.
It won’t be. It already isn’t.
She looks over at Joe. He’s always been better at this kind of thing than her.
This kind of thing. Like she’s ever dealt with anything on this level before. Nao’s professor was just burned to death in front of her.
“Nao,” Joe says, quietly. “I, uh. I don’t know what to say.”
“Who... is that?” Nao asks, pointing with a trembling hand at Professor Mishima.
There’s a terrible silence.
-
Reko is the one who explains it to Nao. That Mishima was her teacher, that she obviously respected him, that Miley apparently wasn’t bluffing when she was talking about erasing memories.
Nao refuses to believe it. Shakes her head. She’s never seen him before.
She looks at Sara.
“I’m sorry,” Sara says. “It’s true.”
“No,” Nao says.
“He was with you when you were captured,” Sara says. “He’s been here the whole time. He didn’t just appear after the vote.”
“No,” Nao says. “This isn’t possible, it’s not real!”
It’s a feeling Sara’s been having herself. But they have to assume this is real. They don’t know why they’re here, but they’re here, and someone is killing them.
Nao takes a quick glance at Mishima’s body. It’s clear that she can’t look at it for long. “You - really? You all remember him?”
Reko puts an arm around her shoulders. “It’s fucked up. I wish I could tell you something else. But we’re not lying.”
“Who voted for him?” Joe asks.
“Not a good path to go down,” Keiji says, at the same time Nao says, quietly, “I don’t remember.”
Sara looks at her. “What?”
Nao is staring at the floor. “I don’t remember who I voted for.”
“You don’t?” Sara asks. It seems like the kind of thing that would stick in your mind.
Nao shudders. “I was really hoping you’d all say you didn’t remember either.”
“Wait,” Sara says. “Does that mean...?”
“I must have voted for him,” Nao says. “Right? I’m part of the reason he’s dead.”
“But you cared about him,” Sara says. “We could all see that.” And she’s lost her memories of Mishima; that makes it certain, right? “You wouldn’t have.”
But Nao didn’t get any votes. So they know she didn’t vote for herself.
She looks over at Joe, and she knows he’s thinking the same thing.
“The doll just said it was a test vote, anyway,” Joe says. “We didn’t know someone would actually die.”
-
Sara wakes in a bed; she doesn’t remember how she got there. Stares at the ceiling.
What happened?
They reached the Main Game. They were expected to pick someone to die, again. Kai was the victim, she remembers. Another person dead.
Did they ever work out who the Sacrifice was?
She doesn’t think so. But she’s still alive, as far as she can tell, so she guesses it wasn’t Kai.
Kai was the only one to die. Maybe the whole concept of the Sacrifice was a bluff. Just making everyone paranoid, making things more interesting for whoever’s benefiting from this sick game. Like when Miley pretended that collar was going to explode.
Whose collar was it, again?
It doesn’t matter. She needs to find out what her situation is.
-
Keiji’s outside the door when she opens it. Has he been waiting for her?
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Where are we?” Sara asks.
Keiji raises his eyebrows, with that half-smile of his. “Not one for small talk? Third floor. We’ve all got bedrooms. Rest if you need it.”
“I can’t rest,” she says. “Two of us are dead already. We need to stop this.”
“Two?” Keiji echoes.
Someone else...?
Kanna’s sister. Of course. Dead before this horrifying ‘memory erasure’ thing kicked in. Sara’s not sure whether Kanna or Nao is in the crueller situation.
Kanna’s sister. There hasn’t been anyone else, has there?
“There wasn’t a Sacrifice, right?” Sara asks.
Keiji looks at her for what feels like a moment too long.
“Doesn’t mean we can assume there won’t be one in the next game,” he says at last. “You want me to show you around the new floor?”
-
Reko doesn’t remember Alice.
It almost feels like nothing’s changed. It’s not like Reko ever mentioned Alice to them, before they actually found him. For a while after that, they were still pretending not to know each other.
From the outside, it’s just the same Reko they knew before Alice joined them. But there’s a gap in her life that nobody can see, not even herself. Sara can’t even imagine it.
And now there’s no way Sara will ever know more about their relationship as siblings. Reko is still alive, but there’s nobody left to ask.
Nobody forgot Kai, Sara keeps thinking. He wasn’t important enough to anyone here. Is it better that they remember him, or would it be kinder if someone had forgotten?
-
It somehow feels like Sara’s legs are too steady as she walks out onto the second Main Game’s grounds. Is she getting used to this? Has it somehow become normal, forcing herself through each new challenge and leaving a trail of corpses behind?
“Another Main Game,” Keiji says. He stands for a moment, hands in his pockets, and then he looks over at Sara. “You think you’ll remember me if I don’t make it through?”
It’s too personal a question. But she shouldn’t be surprised; he does seem to enjoy making her uncomfortable.
“Let’s not find out,” she says.
-
“I’m sorry,” Sara whispers, as the votes are displayed.
“No!” Sou shouts.
Kanna is crying, but she’s smiling, and somehow that makes Sara feel worse.
“I’ll kill all of you!” Sou snaps. “I won’t let you get away with this!”
“You won’t remember,” Keiji says, his voice so cold that Sara feels herself tense up.
-
Sara can’t breathe, watching Kanna’s execution. She was so young. She was so young. And Sara was the deciding vote.
She’s half-hoping that she’ll forget Kanna afterwards. Some evidence that she genuinely cared about this girl, that she made this decision out of love rather than brutal practicality.
But Kanna fades away in front of them, and Sou’s furious protests trail into confusion, and Sara’s memories stay clear. She pitied Kanna, but apparently she’s not going to be allowed to tell herself she loved her.
Kanna took the Sacrifice to save Sara’s life. It feels like it would be wrong to forget her. It feels worse to remember her.
It takes her a moment to tear her eyes away from the roses. To look over at Sou. He’s still staring up at Kanna’s body.
“I don’t remember her,” he says.
Keiji glances over at Sara. She can almost hear his voice: so much for the death threats.
Sou turns, and the look in his eye makes Sara go cold.
“Which means she was important to me,” he says, “and you killed her.”
-
Sou isn’t in the relaxation room. He isn’t in the ruined corridor.
He isn’t in Kanna’s trial room. A part of Sara was really expecting him to be. Would he even remember what that room means, though?
She doesn’t know what she’s going to do when she finds him. She just has to keep looking, because if she stops-
She’s shivering. When did that start?
If she stops, she’s going to have to think.
She sits on one of the beds. Lies down on her side, still fully dressed.
Is this the bed that killed Kanna’s sister? Or is it the one Kanna was trapped and terrified on, the one she escaped from, only to die a few days later?
“Sara?”
It’s Keiji. She tries to greet him, but the word gets caught and dies somewhere on its way.
“Not sure this is such a good place for a nap,” Keiji says. “Can you sit up for me?”
She was the final vote. It’s her responsibility. She killed Kanna; she killed Nao. But it’s worse than that.
Keiji puts a hand on her hunched shoulder, pushes her gently from her side onto her back. It reminds her of being restrained, being strapped down on a bed just like this one.
She scrambles up, knocks his hand away, pushes herself off the bed, breathing hard.
“Back with us?” Keiji asks.
Reko doesn’t remember Alice. And Sou doesn’t remember Kanna. And Nao didn’t remember Mishima.
And Nao was sacrificed.
There’s a chill creeping up from Sara’s gut, out to the rest of her body. She’s beginning to shake.
“Someone was the Sacrifice,” she says, quietly. “Weren’t they?”
“Oh?” Keiji asks, sitting down where she was lying a moment ago. “Didn’t realise you and Nao were that close.”
“Don’t do this to me,” Sara says. It’s hard to look at him, knowing he’s been acting like it never happened the whole time, but she forces herself to. “Someone else died in the first Main Game, didn’t they? It wasn’t just Kai.”
Keiji looks back at her, unreadable.
She can’t stop trying to think of who it could have been. She remembers her mom. She remembers her dad. Did she have any siblings? Are there any strange holes in her childhood memories?
“You shouldn’t have kept it from me,” she says.
He shrugs. “Didn’t seem like knowing would do you much good.”
She doesn’t want to ask. “Who was it?”
“Joe,” he says. “A friend of yours. From school, I think.”
It seems like the name should bring back her memories. It means nothing to her.
“Who was he?” she asks.
Keiji raises his eyebrows. “Thought I just answered that.”
“It’s not enough,” she says.
A friend of hers died? A friend of hers died, and she doesn’t remember him, it’s like he never existed? He must have died in front of her, and now she feels nothing when she hears his name?
It isn’t right. She has to fix it. She just doesn’t know how.
“Didn’t know him well,” Keiji says. “There’s only so much I can say.”
“I have to know,” Sara says, her voice almost breaking.
Should she try to talk to Reko about this, about Alice, about this strange common ground? But how do you talk about memories you don’t have?
Keiji shrugs. “He seemed like a nice kid. Tried to be wary. Wasn’t good at it. Lied to us in the Main Game, but he was the Sacrifice; can’t say I’d have been any better.” He pauses. “Anyone could see he cared about you.”
“And me?” Sara asks. It feels like a terrifying question. “How did I feel about him?”
“Harder to read,” Keiji says. “Just another thing that makes you interesting.”
So she doesn’t know how she felt about Joe. Maybe she was manipulating him. Maybe she threw aside his friendship and acted for her own ends. She’s learnt a lot about herself in this death game, and some of it is uglier than she could ever have expected.
But she can’t remember him. That’s proof that she cared, right?
Keiji digs into his pocket. “Don’t know if you’ll want this, but...”
He holds out a little dog keychain. Silly and cheap, but it’s kind of cute. Sara stares at it for a moment.
“Ryoko gave that to me,” she says. “My friend. Why do you have it?”
“Gin found it,” Keiji says. “Joe always wore it in his pocket. Guess you must’ve passed it to him.”
Is that true?
She can’t remember him. But she remembers this keychain. She wouldn’t have had it on her when she came here, so maybe it really was Joe’s.
She takes it from Keiji. It might as well be Joe; it’s all she has to tell her this person might have existed.
“How did he die?” she asks.
Keiji pauses. “Don’t think you need that.”
She isn’t going to back down. “How did he die?”
“It was fine,” Keiji says. “It was quick. About as good as a death can be.”
“Is that true?” It’s hard to believe it, with all she’s seen here.
Keiji shrugs. “Does it make a difference?”
-
Keiji leaves the room. Asks her to wait for him. “On the bed, if you like,” he adds, with a smile.
She waits against the wall.
Maybe that was his goal. Make the prospect of the bed so uncomfortable that she wouldn’t end up lying there, dwelling on her own First Trial, dwelling on Kanna’s. Maybe he was just being inappropriate. She’s spent enough time trying to analyse him.
How did she get out of her First Trial, anyway? She can’t remember. It feels like it should be memorable.
She looks down at the dog keychain in her hands.
Joe?
-
Keiji returns with a notebook. One of the blank books from the room where Sou found the laptop, she thinks. He’s holding it open, passes it to her.
It’s a sketch of a young man, grinning broadly. Black and white, but with notes and arrows showing what colours things should be: blue jacket, green tie, brown hair.
The clip in his hair looks familiar. Was-
Was Rio Ranger wearing it?
“Is this Joe?” Sara asks, looking sharply at Keiji.
Keiji nods, gestures for her to look back down.
“It’s really good,” Sara says, quietly. She couldn’t really believe he existed, this supposed friend she had no memory of. She can believe he exists now, seeing him in front of her like this. “Did you draw this yourself?”
“Used to practise a lot as a kid,” Keiji says. “I thought maybe I could get into the force through being a police artist. Wasn’t the route I took, in the end.”
“When did you do this?”
She starts flipping back through the book. Reko. Nao. Mishima, drawn in a little less detail than the others.
Sara. Drawn in more detail than the others, a few different poses. She stares into her own eyes.
“Just after Mishima,” Keiji says. “I saw what happened to Nao. Wanted to make sure I had something to remember everyone by, just in case.”
Sara considers her response for a moment. “I didn’t think you were so sentimental.”
“You might as well have it,” Keiji says. “Not sure what my chances of living through this are.”
“Nine point five percent,” Sara says.
Keiji laughs. “Guess so. I’m touched that you memorised it.”
She pages through the rest of it. She’s terrified, with every page turn, that she’ll come across another person she doesn’t remember. But it’s just Joe.
“You’re not in here,” she says. “How am I supposed to remember you?”
“You’re not,” Keiji says. “You’re supposed to forget me. If I can manage that, I’ll be satisfied.”
Sara looks up at him. He’s standing with his arms folded, watching her with that strange, unsettling fondness. She doesn’t know how she can feel so close to him when he always holds himself so distant.
If he’s killed, if he’s wiped out of her mind, at least he won’t be any more of a mystery.
“I think I probably will,” she says.
He smiles.