The air tastes like rust and rot. It's hard to breathe… Like drowning in damp, rotten dust. But I still manage.
Tiny blue mushrooms cling to the cracks in the wall, pulsing weakly. Enough light to see my own trembling hands as I wrap myself, trying to stay warm within my own hug.
"Makoto," she called, "are you even a person?"
"...W-what do you mean, Rina?"
"Like… sometimes, I feel like you're not real."
She waited for my answer. A few seconds. Then continued, looking annoyed.
"You just… read, play, hang out whenever I call you… Do you even have a dream? A hobby?"
"R-read… play… hang out with you?"
"NO!" She stomped, pouting. "A dream! Something that only you can do!"
"Uhm…" I blushed, looking down. "...Hang out with you… f-forever…"
Silence.
She looked at me. Straight at me. For a few seconds.
"O-oh… I-I see. Alright… Anyway, I'm hanging out with my friends. They called me for a movie. Catch you later!"
Every time I replayed that scene, I thought I was being romantic. I thought she was shocked. That her heart fluttered.
But now—the cold biting into me, the blood dripping from my mouth from when Kazuya threw his stone, her not standing up for me…
Only now do I get it.
She wasn't fluttering.
She was fucking disgusted.
'Trash.'
'Trash.'
'Fucking idiot.'
I rock a little, heels digging into my thighs.
'Mom's probably waiting at home right now.'
'Rice cooker clicking off. The little two-room apartment that smells like miso and some cheap soap… Mixed with that night-shift detergent.' Right.
That warmth is away from my reach forever now, isn't it?
'She'll wait until morning. Then call the police. Then wait another day. Another week.'
I gulped, clutching myself harder.
'Maybe... maybe it's better if I never come back. She's young and pretty. She'll find someone nice and settle, without having to worry about me anymore.'
My throat hurts. No tears left. Just dry, ugly sounds I swallow back down.
I pull my knees tighter, curling until my spine screams; I didn't care, as long as even just a little bit of my body heat was reflected back at me.
'...'
The blue mushrooms keep breathing, slow and steady. I finally turn my head.
There's a skeleton slumped against the wall two meters away. Broken cuirass split down the middle, ribs caved in like someone hit him with a truck. Greaves cracked, one pauldron was half-missing. No sword around.
A little metal tag still hangs from the neck, half-buried in dust.
I crawl closer on numb legs; the coldness spreading through me as I uncurl myself; the filthy air has an easier path into my lungs. The letters are... readable. Clear as Japanese.
'...I can read this language.'
I brush the dust off the tag with a shaking thumb.
[V*****,Royal Expeditionary Force 3rd Abyss Descent – Year 742]
The rest of his name except the first letter was smudged.
'V...'
'That was... is... your name, right?'
I settle next to the skeleton, sitting with my knees curled as I stare into the empty sockets.
My eyes drop to his right hand. Bones yellowed, a few knuckles missing, but the fingers are still curled like he was waiting for someone to take them.
I swallow. The sound is too loud in the silence.
'Yeah,' A cracked laugh leaks out of me. 'At this point, only you'll agree to this, right...?'
Another gulp. My throat tastes like iron.
I reach out.
'This is crazy. But...'
My fingers slide between his. Cold. So cold it burns. Dust drifts off the phalanges like dead snow.
I lace our hands together, gently.
"Will you... stay with me?"
My voice cracks on the last word.
"Until I die...?"
I squeeze.
"Thanks... V." I rest my forehead against our joined fingers. "It's stupid, I know. You're dead. You can't hear me. You don't care."
The mushrooms pulse once, twice. I close my eyes and wait for the end, holding the only hand that's ever stayed.
"But… I feel… Calmer talking to you."
Minutes pass.
Eventually dozens in the silence.
An hour. Maybe two. Time is just the slow throb in my temples and the faint flicker of the mushrooms. And the squeal every time I try to take this rotten air into my lungs. I hated it. It felt like I was drowning, but couldn't die; because the air was 'technically' still air.
And just before I fell asleep, the sharp coldness snapped me awake.
My fingers are still locked through V's. The bones have warmed a little. Or maybe I've just gone cold enough to match.
I stared at the broken visor of his helmet.
'I could be the worst piece of human garbage to you right now. I could grind you to powder... and you'd still stay.'
Crack. Crack. I weakly chuckled.
'Reminds me of a dead stray cat I saw one time when I was going shopping for some ramen. It smelled sweet in the wrong way as it was sprawled with its guts out on top of a garbage bag.'
"What do you mean, why does this situation remind me of that?" I let out a chuckle.
"The dead cat didn't try to move away from the garbage bag. You're the dead cat in this analogy… All dead people are like that, is what I'm getting at."
I inhale this rotten air until my ribs scream.
SNAP.
"Dead people can't leave you. Or fuck with your life as they so please…"
All five fingers shatter at once. Dust puffs between my knuckles.
'If by some miracle I crawl out of this place...'
I list the names like a prayer.
'Kazuya.'
'Takeshi.'
'The rest of those laughing bastards.'
'Rina...' A pause. My voice cracks worse than the bones.
I lean closer, forehead almost touching the skull's brow.
'I really do want to fucking kill you.'
My dust-stained hand closes around the broken fingers, grinding the shards.
'But you, Kazuya...'
'No. If I can help it... I'd rather you FELT everything first.'
'Every punch you ever gave me.'
'Every laugh…!!'
I didn't believe those words at all.
I could feel my heart twisting in shame. They felt so forced and rehearsed like I was some character in a novel.
Or maybe this is just Kazuya's mockery echoing from the back of my head. Laughing at my lame attempt to seem 'deeper' than what I truly am — even to myself.
The mushrooms keep pulsing. Slower now.
'But it's all I have,' I thought. 'Because, V... I... Despite everything...'
I sniffled with a cough.
'I wanna live, you know? So even if it is forced... even if it does sound like some rehearsed bullshit, like Kazuya says...'
I took a breath. 'He's not here to tell me that right now. So...'
"S... st-... Status window… S-should work, r-right?"
[Ding!]