Draft Update 14/09/23 (Patreon)

(Sorry this one was a bit of a regression to mean. I had a rough week, not in terms of being sick or busy, just rough.

I made this chapter a little shorter in the hopes the next won't take too long, though this segment stretched out longer than I'd intended anyway. It felt very hard to hit the right note for this part of the story since it's so fucking weird.)

I can't recall exactly what happened after that, because the next 24 hours was a blur. I passed in and out of consciousness, beset by a mix of nightmares of what felt like actual hallucinations, mostly of past events. I only got out of bed to run to the lavatory to throw up and gulp down water by the pint. My body was sweating constantly and violently, like I was literally undergoing some grotesque metamorphosis.

I remember I kept dreaming that I was running down a long hallway from an ocean of black ooze, until it eventually swallowed me whole, or turned into a grotesque, muscular monster and tore me to pieces. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, shouting at the air to get away from me, then being confused about where I was. I remember another dream where I was trapped in Shiko's room in her grandmas house, banging desperately on the door to the point that the bones of my fists cracked and splintered.

I remember a tidal wave laying waste to Itan, swallowing everything - all the schools both Shiko and I ever attended, her whole neighborhood, the Isiyalahs' old house, the entire downtown - and crushing me like an insect as I stood on the beach. I remember standing behind Shiko and crying out her name over and over, only for her to completely ignore me, refusing to look at my face-- And also staring at my old face, and being unable to look away, no matter how hard I tried.

I remember feeling in horrible pain, and waking up in tears. I remember the sense of violation, of everything being ruined. I remember pleading for it to stop, that this had been a mistake, and trying to center myself and purge foreign intrusion from my thoughts-- But not who 'myself' at the time actually was. I remember being frightened and shocked over and over again, unable to process what was happening.

But most of all, I remember my mind tying itself in knots. Ideas and memories swirling and intersecting, their contradictions slamming against one another over and over until I felt mentally spent. Often I couldn't even put into words what was contradictory, they just... Were, viscerally. Like thorns stuck under my skin that I couldn't dig out.

But eventually, my thoughts softened, and the dreams became more peaceful. I relived what felt like Shiko and I's earliest memories, but from contrary perspectives. I sat in the loft of the foster home crying alone into my books, and felt empty and sad. I played in my mother's garden with my childhood friends, and felt carefree. I met my grandfather for the first time on a trip to the museum. I watched my father leave for the last time, just after he'd told me he'd try to make time to visit in a couple of months.

I remembered, for just a fleeting moment, my real mother's face. I carried something on my back as I walked through the rain.

Then, finally, there was nothing. Just the darkness of the deepest sleep.

By the time my eyes opened, I'd just been having a normal, nonsense dream about having the power to turn into a dog. I felt so calm and ordinary that, until my thoughts came into focus, it was like nothing had even happened. As though I could drift back to sleep until it was light out, and it would be an ordinary day. I think I might have even been smiling.

Of course, it only took a moment for the other shoe to drop.

It was strange. Looking back on it, my mind must have triggered some sort of trauma response, because there was no sense of confusion or surprise like there'd been at the clinic. I felt very conscious of my body - the way it pressed against the duvet, the shape of my fingers and mouth, the feeling of my throat as air passed through it for each breath - but this time it all felt strikingly ordinary and natural, more along the lines of what I'd originally imagined when I'd been idealizing the prospect as my old self. And all the earlier stress and confusion was just... gone. Vanished.

I was calm. Almost preternaturally so.

I glanced at the clock at my bedside. It was just coming up on 8:00 PM on Saturday; over a full day had passed. My muscles felt relaxed but a little off; like they are when your body has just finished purging an illness.

I rolled on my back and, still waking up, asked the obvious question.

Who am I?

In my mind, it was like 'I' - as in my conscious, self-aware spark of fundamental cognition, bereft of any wider sense of self - was standing in front of a table with two unmatching gloves in front of me. The first, on the right, represented Utsu. If I willed it... Or rather, lifted it up and began to slip my hand inside... My mind begun to fill with her thoughts. The books and shows she was watching, her homework which she really needed to have started by now, her day-to-day worries about her friends and their lives-- That sort of thing. And if I pushed my hand in deeper, letting my fingers slide up the cloth to the tips, her whole personality on a much more foundational level. Her curiosity and social anxiety. Her specific feelings about her family and friends. Her loneliness and desperate desire to please. Her strange sense of humor.

Actually, it's worth elaborating on the 'specific feelings' part, because I remember being surprised at how different Utsu's feelings of love for her friends and family were from the ones my old self had been for her, because not only were her feelings far more subdued (or, well, I suppose it would be more accurate to say less psychotic) but also surprisingly self-conscious and utilitarian. If you remember me giving that lecture about love being primarily about the fulfillment of needs, that's probably mostly from her. My old self would never have even been able to put why they felt empty hearing their father's platitudes about their mother's love into words.

The more I stretched that glove on, the more the room I was lying in felt like my bedroom, and the situation I was in became profoundly disturbing despite trying to avoid thinking about it. Still, it felt obvious that if I donned this glove tightly, I would for all intents and purposes be Utsushikome of Fusai, even in my own thoughts. The two were so distinct that it felt like I could probably go hours without even remembering the other glove existed.

...yet, it did exist. The second glove, on my left, obviously represented my old self. And if I donned it instead, the same thing happened with that identity. Alongside the room I was in feeling more and more alien, the events and feelings rushing through me as I'd sat with Samium that night felt more and more vivid the further it slipped up my hand, as did the years of pain preceding it. I felt the rancid flavor of those foul emotions on my mouth, the shame and loathing and hate, the morbid sense of my own inhumanity...

...but then, as the glove began to slip on fully, realization, joy, and relief.

There was something about the second glove that made its relationship to me distinct from the first. Even when I took it off, it was like there was little bit of it, a thread, that remained stuck to my hand, to something deeper in my psyche. It was enough to make me intuitively think, 'this glove is a part of me. This is my true self.' So... That was the answer. I was 'Kuroka'.

Yet despite that feeling self-evident, the 'me' that existed independent of the gloves still had its own traits; people aren't just their memories, after all. The way I formed thoughts, even down to this weird abstract glove thing, weren't something Kuroka would have come up with at all.

No, you probably would have found an even creepier and more possessive way to put it, some part of me thought.

This shouldn't have been a surprise; Samium had explained as much before the procedure. 'You will experience a stronger emotional connection to your episodic memory and her semantic memory respectively. Combined with the fact that the pneuma does not store implicit memory at all, that should result in an outcome where your mannerisms and manner of thought more closely resemble her own, but your present identity retains primacy.'

In other words, the 'episodic memory' of my old self's life evoked a stronger emotional response in me, and so felt more like my own. But everything else belonged to Shiko-- Uh, Utsu. Semantic memory was knowledge; language, numbers, concepts. And then there was muscle/procedural memory, and, well, the whole rest of the body. That was why I hadn't been able to reproduce my old handwriting.

So... You could say that though the second glove had that connection to my inner self... It actually fit much worse. Yet even with that framing, I couldn't internalize the idea that I was just Utsushikome of Fusai with someone else's memories. It felt self-evidently delusional.

Finally, I could also put on both gloves at once, though I could tell that even attempting to do so would be overwhelming... And the first glove filled me, the 'me' that existed in the absence of self, with a sense of deep foreboding. Like whatever was there would only bring me unhappiness.

So for time being, I put on the second glove.

And I gasped, suddenly feeling shocked.

I sat up in my bed, and looked around the room. The walls were painted a pale blue, while the carpet was the darker shade. I was lying on a bed with fuchsia sheets which was situated against the center of the back wall of the room. In front of me was a cushioned platform covered in stuffed animals, to my left a logic engine with a shelf of echo mazes and a small sofa, and to my right a bookcase, dresser, and mirror. Oh, and the door to the bathroom.

The house was quiet, save for the occasional bubbling noise from the water clock and the distant sounds of the city proper-- Though my eyesight was somewhat worse, my hearing was a lot better, since I'd always suffered from slight tinnitus from dental issues my seed had. I wasn't capable of my surroundings truly surprising me with the memories I now possessed, but I still stared dumbfounded for over a minute, holding the bedsheets close to my chest.

Then... After a while, and only softly at first... I started to laugh. Then I laughed hysterically, unable to control myself, my whole bed bouncing up and down with each heave. Eventually the laughter morphed into joyful sobs. I held my hands over my eyes, tears streaking down my face.

I was so, so relieved.

It's alright, I said to myself. It's finally alright.

Everything will be alright now.

You're finally yourself. You're finally where you're supposed to be.

I cried more and more, until I was sobbing relentlessly, unable to control myself. It was just like I'd hoped for. I was still myself, but I was also Shiko-- Not an imposter, but the real her, unarguably and and indistinguishably. I could stop being 'me' whenever I wished to at a moment's notice, or replace all the rotten parts of myself piece by piece at whatever pace I desired. I could become the person I'd always desired to be, not just on the outside, but the inside, as well. I could be complete.

It kept sinking in over and over that this wasn't just another escapist fantasy. This was just who I was now; my new existence. I was free. Free...

I felt like a tremendous weight, one I'd not even been able to conceptualize before, had been finally lifted from my shoulders.

I sniffled, drying my nose with the duvet.

What now?

I looked around the room again, staring at all the petty luxuries I'd pined over for decades which I now owned, and realized I had no idea. I could follow through on all the fantasies I'd had, sure, but now that I was like this it felt as though they'd mostly lost their appeal. If I avoided touching the first glove at all, then maybe they'd still be a little thrilling, but... It just felt childish. Indulgent. Carrying the a bad smell from my old life into this new one.

And even if I did, what would come next? I'd been so preoccupied with abstract idea of what I was doing that I'd never paid much thought to the future. And even before this, I'd had no concrete dreams beyond a vague desire to go out into the world and become someone like Shiko, which... Well, to say that was redundant now was an understatement. So where would I go from here on out?

That's obvious, I thought to myself. If there's nothing left of you, then isn't there only one other person to consult?

I slid out of bed, realizing my underclothes were now quite gross on account of the fact that I hadn't fully undressed, and walked around the room for a little bit. I touched the stuffed animals, feeling each of their unique textures. I looked at her books, reading the titles and flipping through the according memories of their contents. I attuned to the logic bridge, and somehow felt even more strange seeing it display Utsushikome's ID and all her messages than I did about, well, everything else. I fished through her mind for a show she'd been keeping up with and watched for a few minutes, just to marvel at how strange the experience was.

This is my stuff, I remember thinking over and over. I own this.

After that, I looked at some other things which are unwholesome and I don't wish to admit. Then, finally, I wandered over to the full-length mirror I'd ended up staring into the previous day before I'd passed out.

Once again, I looked at my reflection. At Utsu's face; my face. I leaned in close, to the point I could see the pores. I felt a vague tingling and a sense of unease.

It's worth taking a moment to discuss explicitly what a prosognostic event actually is. They aren't just something that organically happens as a result of two people having the same seed; if that were the case, distinction treatment wouldn't do anything to offset them, since it's not like the human brain has any natural mechanism to swell up upon seeing a certain type of face. Rather, they're a band-aid solution implemented into human biology by the Ironworkers to make contact paradoxes - obviously much more serious crises - less likely. Well, into human neurology, to be more specific.

The exact physical mechanism is something to do with a nerve that runs from the left fusiform gyrus directly to the spine, but the psychological mechanism, or at least the rough version, is that when the mind senses something off about the recognition of one's own face that's normally meant to occur when one looks into a mirror or other reflective surface, it causes the blood to surge into a skull at a high volume, as if it were wounded. When combined with the surge of cellular energy that occurs when two people with the same seed are in proximity, this process speeds to a fever pitch, causing swelling around the brain. The idea is that this hopefully causes the two people about to touch one another to pass out before they get the chance to do so, preventing catastrophe, even if it sometimes causes a little brain damage along the way.

But of course, even the Ironworkers were human (more or less), so they hadn't had the foresight to predict things like distinction treatments that might fuck it all up. Or, for that matter, Witches.

Though I wouldn't understand what was happening for some time, seeing Utsushikome's face in the mirror upset my mind. It was me and not-me at the same time. My complexion shifted as blood rushed from my cheeks to my upper sinuses.

I noticed that the sensation magnified or dimmed based on how I was wearing the gloves. If loosened the second glove and pulled up the first instead, it dimmed somewhat as the sense of 'this is my face' intensified. Funnily, it also faded if I did the opposite, though in that case it was more about feeling so disconnected from what reflected in the mirror that my brain seemed to conclude I was wearing some freakish full-body costume. It was only really bad when both were on to some degree at once.

The experience was disturbing. Still, I didn't look away.

It was funny, how different it felt--- Almost literally funny, to the point I let out a single, strained laugh. I'd spent so much of my old life thinking of Shiko as the most immaculate, beautiful person in the world, like she was Helen of Troy. Even when I'd met other people my age who'd undergone high-end distinction treatment at secondary school, she'd still somehow outshone them all.

But gods, she... I... looked like such a mess. I hadn't properly untied my braids before I'd collapsed in bed, so one side my hair had got nightmarishly tangled in a bizarre shape around the contortions of the ribbon, while the other had fallen loose entirely, resting at such an odd angle that the roots themselves hurt. There were bags under my eyes, and my lips with chapped. I looked sick.

Seeing my face like that, combined with the perspective I now possessed, I realized just how much of a pedestal I'd been putting her on for so many years. Utsushikome just looked like an normal, somewhat-pretty girl. She looked a lot a lot better than my old self - not that saying that meant much - but had kind of an underdeveloped face, with a weak chin and a large forehead. With her hair down and no glasses, she looked like the kind of person who'd be cast to play a murderous ghost in a horror drama.

It's why I always wear braids, I realized. It's better to look childish than weird.

I shuddered suddenly. It felt disquieting, to evaluate her appearance like this. The more I acted like a voyeur, the more my mind seemed to catch itself in a dissonant feedback loop, recoiling from its own thoughts like a body rejecting a transplanted organ.

That's me, I reminded myself. It's your own face. Of course you're supposed to feel normal about your own face.

I swallowed, my throat dry.

...anyway, it made sense. After all, her face had been designed to look like someone from the old world, even if she'd never known it. Her grandfather's goal would be fidelity, not pure aesthetics, as it was in a lot of cases.

I'd loved her so much I'd never been able to even see her clearly. Not just on the outside, but the inside, as well. Her soul wasn't some sparkling diamond that existed on a higher plane to my own. It, too, was ordinary. I could feel the first glove sitting there, on my fingertips, and knew that if I put it fully on, the last of my illusions about her would shatter completely, leaving only mundane reality.

Had I known it would be like this? I had to have. It wasn't like Shiko really was some kind of goddess. I had to know that, once our memories were united, I wouldn't exactly be able to revel in the joy of having transcended my old self. It would just feel like me. No, it was me. I just... Wasn't thinking about it, right now.

Maybe the fact it was so hard to wrap my head around was why my brain had broken the situation down into this weird binary glove thing. It kept my mind from feeling like it was going to shatter from the contradictions in its own existence. But I could tell it was only for the time being. Each time I reached deep into the second glove, a little bit remained stuck to me. And I knew the same would be true for the other, as well.

It frightened me, a little. Though it was probably for the best.

But... I wanted to pretend, for just a little longer. To savor this perverse, awful triumph.

I kept staring at the mirror. I made various facial expressions, familiar and unfamiliar. A gentle smile. A grimace. A mocking stuck-out tongue. I spun a little on the spot, looking all over my body.

It was pathetic, but I thought about... Making her say something. Or, more accurately, saying something to myself. Maybe having her say that she was sorry, or that she loved me. Or just reciting some of the same comforting words that she'd always spoken to me when we were were friends, the words I'd come to miss so much it hurt.

You're smarter then you give yourself credit for, Kuroka!

I'm here for you if you need anything, Kuroka.

Are you gonna come hang out after school today?

I'll be out on the porch with all the books.

I'm glad to be your friend.

I'm glad...

Somehow, it still hurt. My mind went back to the dock that day, to the moment I saw her walking away for the last time. My eyes grew wed. I had to remind myself. No, it's alright! You don't need to be sad any more. 

Look. She's here now.

I tried to smile into the mirror, but the expression came out strange and forced. That sense of dissonance rose sharply in me again.

You're together. We're together.

"I-I'm here..." I said, the soft words forming awkwardly on my tongue. "Kuro...ka..."

But as I spoke, the first glove slipped further up my hand. And I realized, or rather remembered, what Utsushikome really thought about my old self.

How small a part of her life I'd been even when we were friends. How frustrated and tired I'd made her feel when everything had fallen to pieces. How little she thought about me nowadays at all, first on purpose and then without even trying. And how even my most radiant memories of our friendship had been nothing extraordinary to her, because she'd been doing the same stuff with at least 3-4 other people.

What had seemed like the grand tragedy of my young life had been nothing but a small, sad annoyance for her, in the grand scheme of things. It wasn't even that she'd moved on; there hadn't been that much to 'move on' from in the first place.

Seeing my old self from the outside was a profoundly upsetting experience. Even as I'd thought my life was worthless, I'd always held on to a shred of my pride. But now I could see how creepy and stupid I'd come across as the whole time. How obvious and crude my attempts to manipulate her for attention and affection had been. How terribly I'd read the room when she'd been struggling with all her built-up work. How ridiculous and almost frightening I'd been on that last day we'd met, the resentment and anxiety in me as I felt obligated to apologize over and over, my face red...

A Sunday where I'd turned off my logic engine to avoid the possibility of a conversation. A night where I'd spent 20 minutes complaining about my old self being overbearing to Yu, and then going over-the-top deriding my opinion on a drama we'd watched to make myself better. A school day where they wouldn't stop trying to approach me for another sad, forced conversation, and I almost wanted to go home to get away.

A bitter twitch struck my face. I turned away from the mirror, my face contorted into a strange look.

I knew I'd been pathetic. I knew I'd been thoughtless. But... I always thought that she understood why I was doing it, on some level. That even if our perspectives had been sadly different, she felt some of the same pathos, the same aching sentimentality I did.

I never realized how banal and tedious my shitty behavior had been. That in the end, I'd been nothing but a common creep.

I stood silently for a while. Then I laughed again, grim and low.

Of course it would be like this, I thought. You've always been alone. You've always had nothing. Why would anyone be surprised that a plant growing in a tiny pot of rotten soil would sprout wilted and ugly?

Your soul was rotten and small from the start.

And... Now I'd done this. I'd refused to let it go, and committed a crime against her personhood that there wasn't even a word for.

I'd been monstrous.

And yet, you haven't completely stopped smiling.

I felt a chill come over me, and I huddled my arms together, covering my body. I could feel Shiko's sense of self on the other side of my own, curving into me at the corners, like a coin with a sanded-down rim.

Even with these thoughts, you're not truly guilty, are you? Rather, I'm not truly guilty.

This isn't 'me' feeling regret. This is everything I ever wanted. The realization of my dream.

No.

What 'I'm' feeling right now, in this moment... This is Shiko's despair. Despair at having me having stolen everything from her. At someone she thought she'd left behind doing something so unspeakably horrible she could never have even conceived of it.

I just can't tell the two apart any longer.

A rush of adrenaline shot through me, along with a complicated, confusing sense of contemptful anxiety. I covered my face with my hands, feeling like I wanted to scream out at the open air. It was bitter. Bitter, bitter, bitter.

So what if I did?! I shouted into my own head.

You never even cared about me! NO ONE ever cared!

Did you just want me to lie down and die?!

Fuck you! You never understood!!

The world gave me nothing but mud and ash, and no one ever came to save me! So I saved myself, took it for myself, with my own two hands! And it's finally mine! It's all mine, and there's nothing you can do!!

How does it feel, huh?! How does it feel to be so weak?! To have to watch someone else be happy?!

But the words just fell back upon me, piercing me with self-disgust. The more I indulged the feeling, the more it felt like it would swallow me whole, dissolving the structure of my mind like water washing against walls of salt. I scratched at my scalp madly, my muscles tensing all over my body.

No, this isn't me. This isn't me...

I was going to save her, to... To...

I pulled both gloves away, and closed my eyes, trying to distance myself from everything, to numb everything. Burying those painful, contradictory feelings.

That's not me.

That's not me.

That's not me...

I breathed slowly, in and out. Slowly, calm returned.

Everything was okay. I was the only person here, and I wasn't in any danger. Just standing in my room, in silence, staring at the mirror. 

All the rest... Were just thoughts. Momentary feelings flashing through my mind, unable to alter the immutable physical fact that, from now on, nothing more would hurt me. Everything would be alright.

I stayed there for a few more moments, then wandered aimlessly over to the window, finding myself crying again, but this time much more softly. I shook my head, then looked up, staring at the stars and the glimmer of cities on the other side of the Mimikos. They were harder to make out here than they'd been in Oreskios on account of the lights from downtown, but it all seemed so much more radiant and beautiful regardless. Memories of all the nights I'd looked up at them from this spot flowed into my mind, all the way back from when I was a little girl. Of staring at the horizon without having to be afraid.

I felt more at ease, then I cast my eyes down, looking at the dimly-lit flower garden that covered most of the yard. Against that darkness, I saw my face in the glass again - as I would in every reflective surface again, until the day I died - but being fainter and harder to make out, it felt like it was provoking less of an existential crisis.

I reached out, trying to touch it kindly.

It's alright, I said to myself.

You've just misunderstood things a little, that's all.

I'd thought of my old self as the main character of a story. That my years of solitude and struggle had been building to some grand moment of transcendence and catharsis. I'd convinced myself this was my fate.

But that wasn't it at all. I'd never been anything but a side character-- No, a mistake, an anomaly-- No. Not even that.

That life... That whole life, had been nothing but a meaningless nightmare that I'd had just now. I'd caught something funny at the clinic on the way home from school and the fever had overcome me before I'd had a chance to call back in and get it cured. I'd hallucinated an alternate life where everything had been twisted, formed out of my bad memories from when I'd been living in Itan.

Yeah, that was it. It had felt real, but it had all just been nothing but a disturbing fantasy. And when the morning came, it would all disappear. Fade away, forgotten.

Holding that lie in my mind, I started to cheer up again. I pulled the first glove on more and more firmly, letting the second slide down to the fingers.

And if it wasn't a nightmare, and something of that person does remain, I thought, then it's fine, too. This is the best fate someone like me could have asked for. To surrender my will, and embrace all of her hopes and dreams as my own until I melt away into nothingness.

I'm sure that whatever remains of me will be smiling. I'll keep just enough to savor the taste of that happiness.

I pulled the first glove on tightly, and let Utsushikome's mind overwhelm my own, while holding just enough of the second to transpose her horror with gentle bliss. I smiled strangely and with a tinge of embarrassment, brushing aside all problematic thoughts.

Time for a late start to the day.

I caught up with my messages properly - it had been 24 hours, after all, and outright missed a drama club thing I was supposed to have gone to the previous day. Iwa was probably mad at me. My best friend, Iwa. I wrote an apologetic reply for her and a few other people, then headed to the bathroom and took a shower. When I was done, I realized I was ravenously hungry, so I ordered some Mekhian food for delivery. I started on some of my homework while I waited for the golem, then when it arrived, took it up to my room and did the rest over my logic bridge while catching up on some shows I'd been watching. I stayed up until 3 in the morning getting it all done, since my sleep pattern was screwed up and there was nothing else to do at night.

I went to bed and slept peacefully for about 6-7 hours. I got dressed properly and caught up with my messages again, this time getting into a long chat with Yu, first about a project the math club was doing, then about a graphic novel series we'd both been reading. I made a quick breakfast and did a little work on said project, then took a break and played echo games - slipping a little and deciding to replay one my old self had been really excited about, then feeling strange and switching to a puzzle game I'd been playing for the first time recently instead - until I heard the door opening downstairs as my parents came home.

"Utsu, we're back," my mother called out.

I went down the stairs to greet them. My little brother, whose clothes were dirty from his trip, ran past me on the stairs, brushing against my leg and he rushed up to his room. I stared at him strangely for a moment.

"Sukunoro, don't shove past your sister like that," my mother said, then scoffed as she realized he'd already barrelled out of earshot.

"Little brat has too much energy left," my dad said, chuckling to himself. "Must have been a pretty dull trip."

"The camp master said he spent the whole time sulking. He just likes his games better than being outside," my mother commented idly as she hung up her coat

"Maybe I should cut off the hydraulics to his room."

"I'll hold an expensive funeral after he stabs you in your sleep," she replied flatly, then turned her head up to face me. "How was your weekend, Utsu?"

As my old self, I'd always known Shiko's mother - Kataoka - as being someone polite yet stern, who I could sense on some level didn't really like me. There was always this coldness to her, this stiffness and judgemental quality that never faded. She treated me kindly, relatively, but that kindness was always highly conditional and limited.

I'd always been a little afraid of her, to tell the truth.

But the look on her face, even in that fleeting moment, was so different from any of that. So casual and relaxed, but also genuinely caring. She really did want to know how I was feeling. And there was an underlying affection, a sense of her being happy to see me that wasn't influenced by how I behaved at all.

And... I felt the same way. That in spite of those old feelings still lingering in part of my mind, I also found Utsushikome's unconditional feelings, too. I cared about her. And probably always would.

Ah, I thought.

So this is what it's like to have a mother.

I'm... Really no longer an orphan.

"Kat, I'm gonna unpack the groceries," my dad said, stepping off to the left with a bunch of bags. "I picked up some chocolates for you and your brother, Utsu. I'm leaving out here-- Your box is the one with all the nutty stuff he hates."

She glanced back towards him for a second. "You need to decide if you're coddling him or not." She turned back towards me. "Utsu, did you--"

I embraced her in a hug, wrapping my arms tightly around her chest. I let my head lull forward, leaning against her shoulder, and felt the warmth of her body.

"Wh-- Utsu, what's this?" She laughed nervously, though quickly returned the hug. "Did something happen?"

After a moment or two, I got my bearings again and made up some dumb excuse for behaving strangely, saying I'd been reading a really emotional book where the protagonists mother died or something. She'd told me to stop acting silly, and then her dad had come in and asked why I'd given her the hug despite him being the one to have brought home a gift. My mother mocked him a bit, and I gave him a more half-hearted hug as a joke. Then we chatted about their trip for a little while, split up, then reconvened a little later to go out to eat. We went to one of the restaurants just down the street, and I had a platter of seafood and fried vegetables. And I barely thought about my old self at all, except to quietly note every time I checked off one of her dreams, and laugh at the miracle of her life having been nothing but a dream, dead and gone and obliterated.

And the next morning, I woke up, put on my uniform, and smiled brightly at how nice I looked. I took the tram back up the hill to school. I caught up with my friends during morning classes, went to club, and easily aced a mock exam, almost shocked at how quick and effortless it felt with my new brain. Everyone praised me. Everyone was kind to me. And then afterwards Iwa and I went out to a cafe so she could catch me up on the day I missed.

And so it was the next day, and the day after that. And through it all, there was an unceasing spark in my heart.

I lost myself in a person I wasn't, and rejoiced.

My first sin was not merely that I killed Utsushikome of Fusai. That itself was not beyond repentance.

My first sin was that, for an entire year afterwards, I was happy.