[First Chapter Clear Objective: Find the turning point in Ichinose Honami's life and correct it]
"Simulation... begin."
[Simulation started]
[Day One: The date was July 9. Tokyo was in the grip of midsummer heat in early July. You stood at a street intersection, following the directions on your phone's map to find the location of your house. The cityscape, which you hadn't seen in a long time, felt somewhat unfamiliar. During summer vacation, you could see many high school students dating in pairs on the streets. Advertisements played on giant screens installed on the outer walls of the surrounding buildings. The white cat on your shoulder patted your cheek with its paw pads, signaling that the light had turned green and you could cross.]
[The cat, named Hotaru, was a stray you had picked up outside last year. Its eyes were a brilliant firefly-green, so you had named it Hotaru.]
[Two days ago, you had received a text from your friend Matsuo Eiichiro, back when you were still living in the countryside. You had met him two years earlier, and he had looked after you ever since. When he heard you had lost your memories of the past, he actively helped you look for clues. His efforts had finally paid off: over the past two days, he had found out your real name and address, then sent you the information he had gathered.]
[Kitagawa Ryo. That was your name. Your address was an apartment building in Nakano Ward, Tokyo, four stories tall. There was also a prepaid bank card registered under your identity, with a full five million yen in it. Perhaps it was a gift your past self had left for your present self.]
["Recently, Tokyo Koudo Ikusei High School held a press conference to respond to a series of questions, including accusations that it was using too many public resources. Chairman Sakayanagi spoke on the issues."]
[The news playing on a screen outside a building by the roadside caught your attention.
"Sakayanagi?"
For some reason, the surname felt familiar. It was as if a crack had opened in the cellar door of your sealed memories.]
[You shook your head, pushing aside your scattered, aimless thoughts. The most important thing now was to find that apartment. If the neighbors still remembered you, perhaps you could learn about your past from them.]
["Phew, this must be it." After another two hours on the road, you finally arrived in front of the modest-looking apartment building.]
["I remember Eiichiro said the exact address was on the fourth floor." Just as you were about to open your phone and check the precise location, you suddenly heard footsteps coming up the stairs.]
[You were blocking the stairwell between the third and fourth floors with a huge pile of luggage. Realizing someone was coming up from below, you hurriedly hauled all your bags to the fourth-floor corridor. As you passed the stairwell again with the last small bag on your back, you saw a girl of about fifteen or sixteen, probably around your age.]
[The first thing to catch your eye was undoubtedly her waist-length golden-pink hair. Beneath her soft bangs, a pair of clear blue eyes shone with delight and disbelief. Even though summer clothes tended to be loose, her chest still stretched the fabric taut, its generous curves accentuated by a tightly cinched waist that made her seem especially slender. The hem of her black skirt fell just past her knees, and you faintly caught the scent of green citrus.]
[You noticed she was staring intently at your face, and tilted your head in confusion. Hotaru, on your shoulder, tilted her head too.]
["Um, hello?"]
[Unlocked Story CG: After All These Years]
[After All These Years: A reunion can mean both parting and meeting again. Well, it's been a long time.]
[Read this story CG? (This may help you with the game from here on.)]
Chapter 24: After All These Years
Ichinose Honami had started learning to write letters when she was ten. At an age when her classmates were still struggling with picture-prompt essays, she could already fill several pages of snow-white paper with her writing.
Whenever Ichinose Honami sat down to write, her mother would pull up a chair and sit beside her. A forest-green bulb hung above them, casting two shadows—one large, one small—across the wall. They stretched halfway across the room.
At first, Ichinose Honami didn't even know the proper format for a letter. She could only imitate whatever she found in the limited things she had read, starting with something that seemed close enough, like nine-year-old Vanka's letter to his grandfather:
"Dear Grandfather, Konstantin Makarich! I am writing you a letter. I wish you a merry Christmas and pray to God that you will always be well."
Ten-year-old Ichinose Honami followed his example:
"Dear Big Brother, Kitagawa Ryo! This is Ichinose Honami. It's been two weekends since you moved away. I'm very unhappy right now, so I don't want you to be happy when you read this letter either. If you're happy, you won't know how unhappy I am."
"Actually, what makes me even unhappier is that when I'm unhappy, I can't go straight to your house and tell you I'm unhappy. Instead, I have to write you a letter now. By the time you get it, I might have forgotten all about this. By the time you write back, I might have something else I want to tell you."
"I really don't like writing letters. I'd rather look at your face, look into your eyes, and tell you all this."
Ichinose's mother didn't say a word, nor did she make a sound. She simply waited for Ichinose Honami to finish her letter, then answered her anxious daughter:
"He'll get it. If he writes back, I'll bring the letter to you."
"Ryo will definitely write back. He promised."
Once she had finished writing, Ichinose Honami would return to her usual self. She might have frowned and pouted while writing, but the moment she handed the letter to her mother, she would forget those little feelings.
"Oh, he promised."
Ichinose's mother calmly repeated her daughter's words. She could hear a thousand promises like that at the school gate in a single day: promises to play together forever, not to tell anyone a secret, or to give you something from home. Did she believe them?
Of course she did. Why wouldn't she?
In her view, any woman who had never believed a man's promises could be called prematurely old. Discovering that the things you had believed in without doubt were slowly rotting away was simply a necessary part of growing up. There was no reason for her to stop it.
Besides, she had a little hope of her own. Watching her daughter ask again and again whether there was a reply after sending a letter, the mother found herself feeling a little hopeful, too—as if she could make up for her own regrets.
Unlike her daughter, though, she was an adult and knew more clearly what had happened to the Kitagawa family next door. They had all been in a terrible car accident, and the only survivor was the boy who used to play with her daughter. After that, she had heard only bits and pieces of rumors, including that he had been adopted by other relatives of the Kitagawa family. The place, apparently, was the United States.
So, unlike her daughter's confidence, the mother had been half resigned to disappointment when she mailed the letter to that address. She, too, had once tried to contact someone with a heart full of hope. By then, she even had two children with him. But that man had been no more than a kite she held by the hand; all she could hold on to was a thin string. The moment the wind blew, it snapped, and there was nothing she could do about it.
What if the address he gave them was fake?
What if the address didn't exist at all?
What if he hadn't taken his promise seriously?
The mother was even more nervous than her daughter. She waited in fear and anticipation until, half a month later, a reply really did arrive.
"See? I told you he promised."
In that moment, the mother didn't even notice how awkward her daughter's words sounded. When she took the letter from the mailbox, a great sense of calm and reassurance seemed to envelop her. She handed it to Ichinose Honami and said, in a voice bright with joy she didn't even realize she felt:
"Go read it."
Ichinose Honami and Kitagawa Ryo kept up their correspondence for four years.
In the first year Ichinose Honami started middle school, her letters stopped reaching the old address. In truth, there had been signs. During the last few months of their correspondence, Ichinose Honami had already asked him to exchange contact information—or, more specifically, to use modern communication tools. She didn't care whether it was a phone or a computer, an email address or a cell phone number. But he had always been evasive.
He disappeared without a word again, like a moon sinking beneath the water. Ichinose Honami reached out, desperate to fish him back up, but all that fell into her hands were receding clouds and moonlight, and letters returned unopened.
Ichinose Honami refused to believe it. She remembered the two of them holding each other and crying when they parted. Children couldn't cry that much all the time, and as they grew up, they became even less willing to cry over someone until their bodies shook. She couldn't believe he had laughed with other friends so many times and cried so many tears for them. Would he cry for every girl he met?
Impossible.
So Ichinose Honami struggled on, continuing to write to him as if she had fallen outside the bounds of modern society. Her mother, however, no longer wanted to watch her write letters, nor would she help mail them. But that was all right. Ichinose Honami had learned to go to the post office on her own. She put stamps on the envelopes and clearly recited the address to the clerk. It was only after learning geography that she understood how far away it was: across the vast ocean.
During the first year Ichinose Honami received no reply, she wrote more letters than ever. She sent a long letter every week. Her knowledge grew, and she became better and better at using all kinds of literary flourishes to express her feelings. She could also clearly list one by one all the interesting things that had happened at school. Her writing skills improved, and her letters grew longer and longer.
At that time, writing letters became the most important event of Ichinose Honami's week. It was as though the Ichinose Honami who existed during the day—whether at school or at home—wasn't real. Only when she sat down at her desk at night to write to him did she truly come alive. If the moon was beautiful that night, she would think that they must be bathing in the same moonlight. If her little sister was noisy, she would write about her in the letter. Of course, she couldn't devote too much space to her. Ichinose Honami wouldn't allow other girls to feature too prominently in her letters to him, not even her own sister.
Ichinose Honami was far calmer than her mother had imagined. She truly didn't care that one letter after another came back, but she kept sending them to that vague, faraway address, one after another, and more and more often. In the end, she couldn't control herself anymore.
A year later, Ichinose's mother finally put her foot down and stopped Ichinose Honami from mailing any more letters.
As for whether Ichinose Honami still wrote letters to this day, her mother felt she no longer had any say in it.
Watching her daughter repeat her own mistakes, she felt sorry that someone had deceived her daughter at fifteen or sixteen, yet was also glad that her daughter had already been deceived at that age. Suddenly, she felt a strange sense that she and her daughter had weathered the same hardship.
Her mother believed that Ichinose Honami would grow up after this. She was relieved.
But a faint regret lingered in her heart. She really had hoped for something, but in the end, it had been nothing more than wishful thinking.
"Um, hello?"
Kitagawa Ryo, of course, had no idea what the girl, still a few steps below him on the stairs, was thinking. He even wondered if he was blocking her way, so he moved aside a little more. Then he suddenly remembered why he had come and asked hesitantly:
"Do you know me?"
Kitagawa Ryo instantly grew excited. Having lost his memories of the past, he had spent the last two years working hard to learn how to interact with people, but in some ways, his emotions were still as simple as a child's. He dashed down the stairs to Ichinose Honami, set Hotaru on the floor, and seemed to want the girl to get a better look at him. Leaning a little closer, he asked:
"Do you know me, Miss?"
During his two years in the countryside, Kitagawa Ryo had grown used to all kinds of affectionate forms of address. He had survived thanks to everyone in the village. In his mind, besides "Grandpa," "Grandma," "Uncle," and "Aunt," the only way he could think of to address someone his age was "Miss."
Of course, that might also have been because he had no female friends his own age. Eiichiro was always bragging about having a childhood friend, but Kitagawa Ryo had never met her in person. He had only seen two photos of a girl.
His gaze drifted involuntarily to the girl's chest. Before today, the prettiest girl in Kitagawa Ryo's world had been Eiichiro's childhood friend. But this girl, who seemed to know him, looked even more beautiful.
"...You."
"Me?"
"My name is Kitagawa Ryo, though I only found that out recently."
Kitagawa Ryo looked at Hotaru, who was tugging at his trouser leg to show her displeasure. He had no choice but to pick her up again and wave her paw at the girl:
"This is my cat. Her name is Hotaru. I gave her that name."
After he finished speaking, he and Hotaru stared at Ichinose Honami, apparently waiting for her to introduce herself. Ichinose Honami gazed into his eyes. They were still clean and beautiful, dark as the purest obsidian. Like the cat in his arms, they were full of life, yet tinged with confusion.
"Wait a moment."
As she spoke, Ichinose Honami began searching for something in a compartment of the shoulder bag she carried with her. Even while she searched, her eyes remained fixed firmly on Kitagawa Ryo, as if she were afraid he might run away at any moment.
Kitagawa Ryo simply stood there obediently with Hotaru in his arms. Up close, the faint scent of green citrus was even more noticeable.
"Here."
Ichinose Honami handed him a photograph. Her slender fingers brushed lightly across the picture, and the tips of her fingers touched yours.
Two children stood hand in hand, with a huge stone sign behind them. It looked like a photograph taken at the entrance to some park. On their right, the word "Park" had been carved into the stone in bright red paint. Both children were smiling their biggest smiles at the camera.
On the back of the photograph, "Kitagawa Ryo & Ichinose Honami" had been written in elegant, flowing black marker.
"Is this me when I was little?"
Kitagawa Ryo was seeing a photo of his past for the first time. Several years had passed, but the boy's eyes and brows did resemble his own. Still, his mind remained a complete blank.
"Then you're..."
He turned the photo over and saw the girl in the picture, whose name was written beside his own. Kitagawa Ryo looked up and murmured:
"Ichinose Honami."
The name seemed to linger like magic at the very tip of your heart. You stared into her blue eyes and saw your own reflection in them. In the dim stairwell, Ichinose Honami moved closer to Kitagawa Ryo, as though trying to confirm something. She was waiting for an answer—or perhaps welcoming a judgment.
"Do you remember?"
By the time Kitagawa Ryo came to his senses, the girl in front of him had backed him into a corner. Flustered, he turned his head away, trying to avoid her gaze.
"Ichinose Honami. Do you remember?"
Her eyelashes and the tip of her nose were now barely touching Kitagawa Ryo's chin. Their skin brushed, almost imperceptibly. From this angle, Kitagawa Ryo could see the girl's startling curves just by lowering his head. Before the pale, ample fullness could claim his entire field of view, he decisively closed his eyes.
But he soon realized he had made a mistake. Kitagawa Ryo had clearly never learned a certain principle—
When people close their eyes, their brains naturally sharpen their other senses to compensate for losing sight, their main source of information. It was like how people deliberately shut their eyes when concentrating on music.
Kitagawa Ryo felt his right hand pressed against the wall. The back of his hand felt the wall's faint chill, but soon his palm was filled with softness. The other person's fingers forcefully slid between his, while her other hand came to rest on Kitagawa Ryo's chest, as if she wanted to hear his heartbeat. She, too, gradually leaned her head closer.
Hotaru had been shooed aside and could only jump onto the stair railing.
"Ichinose Honami."
"Are you my older sister, or my younger sister?"
Kitagawa Ryo thought an embrace this intimate should probably be reserved for family. He asked tentatively.
"No."
"I'm your girlfriend, the one you haven't seen in a long time."
Ichinose Honami rose onto her toes and whispered beside his ear. Her lips brushed Kitagawa Ryo's earlobe, and a thrill like an electric current shot from his ear straight to his heart.
[Story CG: After All These Years, finished reading.]
Chapter 25: Weaving Dreams
[Year Seven, Day One Hundred and Ninety-Nine: When you woke up in bed, a deep unease enveloped you. The bedroom looked unfamiliar, and the wallpaper on the walls had a pattern you'd never seen before. You didn't know where you were, or even how you'd gotten here.
This wasn't the home you remembered. Even though you had no memories of the past, you still made that judgment.
Was this some kind of hotel?]
[A woman's voice caught your attention. You propped yourself up on one arm and saw that it was coming from a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. The woman's voice you had heard was simply a news anchor on the morning news.
You rubbed your eyes. For the past sixteen years, you had always been very confident in your eyesight. Whenever the children lined up to take vision tests, they would stammer or make things up when confronted with all those tilted Es. You could always calmly tell the adults testing you:
"Just point to the bottom row."]
[Your eyes gradually adjusted to the surroundings. They hadn't let you down; you could still see just as clearly. The first thing you noticed was a large wardrobe on the right. A man's bathrobe hung from its handle. The black robe looked both light and stylish. You touched it with your right hand; the material was nice, too. But judging by its size, it belonged to an adult man.]
[On the bedside table to your left was a neat stack of books. You pulled out two and took a look. They were textbooks on early childhood education. A small lamp hung above the center of the headboard, and you guessed the owner of the books liked to read propped up in bed at night.]
[You opened the first book to its title page. A name you didn't recognize at all appeared there:]
[Ichinose Honami.]
[You looked at the quilt that had been turned back on your right. It was still a little warm, so someone must have been lying there not long ago. You guessed it might have been the owner of the book: Ichinose Honami. The name sounded like a girl's.]
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