"Good morning. Your name is Arisa, and your locket is full. Look inside. Her picture is there, beside his. The girl who writes this put it there last night. It wasn't a sad decision; it was a hopeful one. It was a choice not between past and present, but to find a way to build a future that holds them both. The echoes of her are getting stronger, and you—the current you—are getting braver. Yesterday, you kissed him in the rain. Today, you are going to talk to your parents. You are going to ask for the key."
I sit up in bed, the morning sun already high in the sky. It's Saturday. The words on the postcard feel less like instructions and more like a declaration of intent. I open the locket, and there they are. Two versions of the same story. The laughing boy from our Day One, and the happy, secret couple from a time I can't recall. For the first time, seeing her face doesn't fill me with a sense of loss. It fills me with a fierce, determined curiosity. I want to know her. I want to understand.
I'm ready.
When I go downstairs, Haruto is in the kitchen, reading the newspaper. He looks up and does a double-take. "You slept in," he says, a hint of surprise in his voice. "Your internal alarm is usually spot-on."
"I guess I was tired," I say, though I know it's not the truth. The dreams are getting more vivid, the emotional residue stronger. Sleep is no longer a blank, empty void. It's an active, humming place where the ghosts of my yesterdays are beginning to stir.
My parents are at the table, a video call set up on a laptop. They're back in their overseas apartment, but their faces are focused and attentive. We'd scheduled this call. The first family meeting where I am not just the subject of the discussion, but a driving force. Reo is there too, a calm, steady presence on the screen beside them, calling in from his own home. He'd insisted he be there, but only as support, not as a voice in the decision.
"Good morning, sweetheart," my mother says, her voice warm through the speakers. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm feeling… ready," I say, taking a deep breath and sitting down opposite the laptop, so they can see my face clearly. "I want to talk about the treatment. The Prometheus therapy."
A heavy, hopeful silence settles over the room. I can see my father lean forward, his hands clasped on his desk.
"I've been thinking about what Reo said," I continue, my voice gaining strength. "That the memories might not be gone. Just… locked away." I touch the locket at my throat. "And I'm starting to feel them. Little pieces. Echoes. A nickname. A feeling in the rain. And… I'm not scared of them anymore. I'm not scared of her." I look at Reo on the screen, a silent acknowledgment passing between us. "I want to meet her. I want to know the whole story."
I turn back to my parents. "I want to try it. I want to try the therapy. I understand the risks. The paranoia, the fragmentation. But the risk of never knowing, of never being a whole person… that feels bigger now. I want to open the door."
My mother's eyes are shining with tears. "Arisa, are you sure?"
"Yes," I say, and the certainty of it resonates through my entire being. "This isn't just for them," I say, gesturing to Reo. "Or for you. It's for me. I don't want to live my life reading the reviews of my own movie anymore. I want to watch it."
My father takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes, his composure finally cracking. A single tear traces a path down his cheek. "Okay, sweetheart," he says, his voice thick. "Okay. We'll support you, one hundred percent."
Reo's face on the screen is a mask of profound, heart-stopping emotion. He is terrified for me, but he is also incredibly proud. He gives a small, single nod, his promise of support unspoken but absolute.
The decision, once made, unleashes a flurry of activity. Phone calls. Emails. Medical consultations via video link with a team of specialists whose names I will forget by tomorrow. But at the center of it all is a calm, steady presence: Reo's father.
Dr. Kisaragi has a kind, tired face and the same quiet, analytical intelligence as his son. He speaks to me not as a patient, but as a person. He explains the process in clear, simple terms. The therapy is non-invasive. A series of sessions using a combination of targeted electromagnetic stimulation and guided sensory recall. They will use my anchors—the photos, the diary, the locket, even the music I love—as starting points, as keys to try and unlock the suppressed neural pathways.
"Think of your brain as a library after an earthquake," he explains, his voice calm and reassuring through the screen. "All the books have been knocked off the shelves and are in a jumbled pile on the floor. The books are still there, the knowledge is intact, but the card catalog is a mess. You can't find anything. Our goal is not to re-write the books, but to slowly, carefully, try and put them back on the shelves."
The first session is scheduled for the following Saturday, at a private clinic here in our city that has partnered with Prometheus. The week leading up to it is a strange, suspended time. Itsuki is a silent, watchful ghost at school, but his games feel petty and distant now. My world has tilted toward a new, much more significant horizon.
My time with Reo takes on a new quality. It's no longer just about building a new future or understanding the old past. It's about preparation. It's about gathering tools. He helps me create what he calls a "sensory toolkit." We go to the bookstore and I just sit there, breathing in the scent of old paper. We go to a cafe and I hold a warm mug, focusing on the bitter taste of coffee. We listen to our sad, indie playlist, and he points out the chord progressions that my other self loved the most.
He is not trying to force a memory. He is helping me build a vocabulary of feelings, so that if the therapy works, if the books do start to come off the floor, I might recognize their language.
The night before my first session, he walks me home. We stop at the gate, under the warm glow of the porch light. The air is cool and still, filled with a nervous, electric energy.
"Are you scared?" I ask him.
"Terrified," he admits without hesitation. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his hand, uncurling his fingers. In his palm is a small, ornate, old-fashioned silver key. "My father gave this to me. It's… a metaphor, I guess. It's the master override key for the machine. The fail-safe. If at any point the process becomes too much, if you are in distress… I can stop it. Instantly."
He closes my hand around it. The metal is cool and intricate against my palm. "You are not going into that room alone, Arisa," he says, his voice low and fierce. "I will be in the observation room, watching every second. And you will have the remote. You will have your own key. But I want you to know that I will have this one. I will be your guardian, just like I have always been."
He's not just the keeper of my past anymore. He is literally the keeper of the key to my mind. He is the person who has the power to either open the door or to lock it shut again to protect me.
"But what happens," I whisper, the biggest, most terrifying question of all finally bubbling to the surface. "What happens if it works? If she… comes back? The girl who wrote the diary. What happens to me?" The girl of the now, the girl built of postcards and photo strips, the girl who fell in love with him a second time. If she wakes up, do I disappear?
Reo's expression is filled with a heartbreaking tenderness. He reaches up and gently cups my cheek, his thumb stroking my skin.
"You're not two different people, Arisa," he says, his voice a raw, earnest whisper. "You never have been. You're two parts of the same, beautiful, complicated story. You're the before and the now. The roots and the flower. The therapy isn't about bringing her back. It's about making you whole. And I love the whole story." He leans in and presses a soft, lingering kiss to my forehead. "I will be there when you wake up. No matter who is looking out through your eyes."