"If you have any questions, please call the psychologist, Sakayanagi Arisu, at this number." After falling into a state of utter panic, you instinctively remembered the information you had received that morning. In a frantic rush, you dialed the number you'd memorized from the living room. At first, you worried Ichinose Honami might have blocked your calls as well, but the call went through, and you breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hello, this is psychologist Sakayanagi Arisu." A cool female voice came through the receiver. Though she seemed to be deliberately making her voice sound more mature, you still judged that she couldn't be more than eighteen. In other words, she was a high school student, underage, who called herself a psychologist—perhaps even younger.
That reality left you momentarily at a loss for words. You decided to test how much she knew about you.
"May I ask who I am?"
"Hmm?"
Sakayanagi Arisu seemed intrigued. She brought her mouth closer to the phone, and the faint sound of her breathing became more pronounced in your ear, creating an air of contrived mystery. Influenced by her, your own breathing grew heavier.
"You're my patient number one, Kitagawa Ryo. It's good to hear from you again."
She seemed to be looking through some records.
"It's been two years and one hundred and twenty-eight days since we last spoke."
"Two years and one hundred and twenty-eight days? What do you mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like."
Sakayanagi Arisu sighed on the other end. She seemed to have found your case file and was reading it to you line by line.
"Kitagawa Ryo, twenty years old. Symptoms: amnesia."
"You should be glad that, because your condition was rather unusual, I made sure to keep a file on you."
The sound of typing and clicking a mouse came through the receiver.
"There are two main types of amnesia," Sakayanagi Arisu explained.
"The most common is when patients can't remember events that have happened to them. The more recent the event, the more likely it is to be affected. For example, if a patient gets into a car accident, they might not remember the accident, or the days or weeks leading up to it. But they might remember everything that happened before that—say, more than six months before the accident—with perfect clarity."
"The other type is rarer," she said. "Sometimes, short-term memories can't be converted into long-term memories. People with this condition can only live in the present. They can recall only what just happened, and their memories last for a very short time."
"Unfortunately, you show symptoms of both types."
"You've lost your memories of the past, and you can't form new ones."
She seemed to take a drink, wetting her throat before continuing with evident interest.
"More unusual still, your memories work differently from those of most people with amnesia. For example, many patients with amnesia can't have a continuous conversation with me because they soon forget what we were talking about. But you can remember things for quite a while."
"Twenty-four hours?"
You remembered Ichinose Honami saying that you lost your memory every morning.
"Yes, twenty-four hours."
A hint of confusion crept into her voice, but her professional manner had already made you forget her age.
"Twenty-four hours means you're perfectly capable of converting short-term memories into long-term ones. I've never understood why you can't retain them."
"Can you help me?" you asked, as if grasping at your last lifeline. This state of having no memories was driving you nearly insane. You couldn't trust anyone. Those three different handwritings had pierced your brain like three spears, and all sorts of conjectures swirled within you.
"Of course. You're my patient, after all."
Sakayanagi Arisu gave a lazy yawn, then assured you with complete confidence:
"Actually, if your girlfriend hadn't firmly refused to let you undergo psychiatric treatment three years ago, you might have recovered your memories already."
"Three years ago? How old were you back then?"
You caught the inconsistency in her words and asked without thinking.
"It's impolite to ask a girl her age, Kitagawa Ryo."
The voice on the other end chuckled. What she said next left you rooted to the spot.
"I'm going to say a few keywords that might trigger your memories. Try your best to think about them."
The receiver slipped from your hand and clattered to the floor. The sound was crisp, like a skeleton falling, and in the empty room it seemed unbearably lonely.
"White Room."
That was what she said.
Dreaming Awake?
You had no memories of your past. Like this room, with its four walls and ceiling painted snow-white, you were utterly empty and blank.
But later, someone told you that you had a younger sister. She wasn't related to you by blood, but she had grown up with you, and was no different from family. Your memories suddenly came rushing back.
Yes, you remembered the girl who was always following you around, calling you "big brother."
Under the teacher's arrangements, you saw her again. She was as beautiful as ever.
After that, you stroked the top of her head countless times. Yet each time you ran your fingers through her silky hair, your heart bowed before her, and your whole soul seemed ready to sink into the tenderness that flowed from your fingertips.
The girl lying quietly on the feather-soft bed was so lovable, so fragile and delicate, like the finest porcelain.
Even the best apple would turn ugly if left exposed to the air too long and allowed to oxidize. So you had to keep her protected, in this pristine world cut off from the outside, where no one else existed.
"Big brother."
Whenever that word left your younger sister's lips, your heart filled with the satisfaction of tasting the sweetest honey.
"I heard you got the top score on today's test, big brother."
Your younger sister had no talent whatsoever. Compared to you, a genius trained as one even here, the difference between you was as vast as heaven and earth.
Her body made her clumsy in everything she did. She knew nothing about studying, was tone-deaf, and had the worst physical fitness of any ordinary person. She barely understood the rules of board games, couldn't draw, and knew nothing about how to interact with people.
If she were alone, she wouldn't be able to survive in this world of ruthless competition.
"I worked hard for you," you always replied.
So you would work twice as hard, or even more, for your sister. You had to protect her so she could survive.
"Mm."
You whispered together, close enough that your breaths mingled.
You had thought those days would continue forever, until—
Black and white pieces clashed on the chessboard, moved by the players.
Your fingers trembled, and you could barely hold the piece in your hand.
You wanted to close your eyes and escape, but the clock kept ticking, urging you on.
You wanted to get up and run, but your whole body seemed nailed to the spot.
The pure-white room slowly dissolved like a dream, like snowflakes falling onto a blazing furnace and vanishing in a steady trickle.
The deep-purple eyes of your opponent seemed bottomless, like a deep pool or the open sea. They also seemed like a gaping maw, roaring its greeting.
"Geniuses can't be made after the fact, just as ordinary people can't rival the gods."
Her attacks came like a violent storm.
"Just like Oedipus—or Icarus."
She shook her head, and her silvery-white hair swayed with it.
"Fly too close to the sun, and your false wings will burn. Then you'll fall from a great height—a very great height."
Her slender white fingertips moved a piece as pale as jade. She advanced the final move against Kitagawa Ryo.
"Only I am suited to burying a false genius."
"Check."
The sweetness and purity painted over your dark memories were torn away without mercy. Kitagawa Ryo lost his seventh game against her.
The result was zero to seven. It was less a match than a crushing, one-sided slaughter.
The fluorescent lights on the ceiling shone like stars that glittered for an instant before vanishing.
The boundary lines on the chessboard seemed to sway and blur.
Everything before you felt separated by a thick film, and you could no longer hear the sounds around you clearly.
Something rose from your chest, filling you with anguish. Something stuck in your throat, leaving you unable to speak.
"Well, the game is over."
The absurdity sang out. The truth revealed after the falsehood was torn away was often even more cruel.
Your younger sister looked down at you from above.
"Failure."
You stumbled.
Like someone in a dream suddenly kicking out with their foot, you seemed to hear the sound of glass shattering. The image before you disappeared, as though the reel of film had reached its end. The screen turned into flickering light and drifting dust.
You opened your eyes again.
There was no sound from the receiver on the floor, but the call hadn't been disconnected. It was as if she had anticipated your reaction. Like a seasoned hunter, she had laid out the bait and was quietly waiting for you to take it.
You closed your eyes and tried to recall the scene again. You tried to see the snow-white walls and the black chess pieces. You tried to make out the girl's face, but there was nothing. Those faint memories had evaporated without a trace, as though they had never existed—or had been burned to ash by reality.
"I remembered something."
You picked up the receiver and answered her.
"Ah, shouldn't that be something to celebrate?"
Sakayanagi Arisu answered you at once.
"What did you remember?"
"A white room. I was in it... studying... my younger sister... defeated."
The words came out so broken they barely formed a sentence. Perhaps even you didn't know what you were saying.
"What was her name?"
Sakayanagi Arisu continued guiding your thoughts. Her voice was hazy and dreamlike, as if it came from another world.
"I can't remember." You wondered if the girl might have been Ichinose Honami. After all, Ichinose Honami had said that the two of you had been childhood friends, together since you were young. But when you tried to place Ichinose Honami's image over the blurred girl in your dream, it never quite fit.
"Then let's move on to the next keyword." Sakayanagi Arisu chuckled, like a child who had found an interesting toy. Still pressed to the receiver, she spoke to you softly.
"Matsuo Eiichiro."
"You're amazing."
You heard a boy your age, sitting beside you, praise you. You were both sitting high on a hillside. The blood-red sunset spread across the mountain at dusk, stirring your consciousness. You looked around, wondering where you were and when you had arrived.
"You're probably the first person to get out of there."
The boy reached out and plucked a blade of grass beside him. He held it between his teeth and continued, still lying down.
"My dad said this is probably the first case, too."
"Hey, tell me what it was like in there. I'm really curious. We're friends now, after all."
When you didn't say anything, he unceremoniously hooked an arm around your neck and pulled you down beside him. He propped his head up on your right and nudged you with his chin.
"You don't have to tell me. It's not like I'll ever have anything to do with a place like that in my life."
"But if you're my friend, doesn't that mean you've got something to do with that place?"
You heard yourself say that.
"Ah... I guess it does."
The boy let his arm fall and lay back down, gazing at the sky.
"I don't know how long it'll take them to find you, but until they do, you should hide here."
"Mm. Thank you."
The boy turned to look at you. Your earnest expression made him chuckle.
"What, I thought everyone who came out of there would be a robot."
Before you continue