Archive of Our Own ^beta

It had only been a few months ago. A voice had crept into Carlos’s dream. A wordless scream. A distress call. It had continued to echo in his brain for seconds after he woke up, just long enough to assure him that it was real. Then abruptly, it was cut off, and Carlos knew in his gut that Maria was dead.

Maria had stopped trying to contact him telepathically years ago. During the sandstorm that had separated them, Carlos had tumbled down a hill, breaking several bones. As his sister called out to him desperately, he had been selfishly focused on his own recovery in the cozy home of the elderly scrap collector who had found him. By the time he was fully healed, Maria had given up, and Carlos had grown comfortable in his life with Akane. Their psychic connection only went one direction, anyway, and he took the silence on her end as a sign she was safe. Perhaps she’d found a kindly caretaker of her own – a foolish and adolescent thought, but that was what he’d told himself.

A decade went by and he never searched for her, and in a moment, it became his biggest regret. He didn’t want Akane to have the same regret. But it appeared she had also been too late.

He peered around the partition. Akane was exactly where everyone had left her, sitting on the center bed, hunched over the old man’s body. She scrutinized his face, presumably for the dozenth time as she tried to convince herself he was somebody else.

Carlos called out for her. “Come to the warehouse, Ma. The Chromatic Doors are opening soon.”

Akane turned her head, showing Carlos her profile. She looked ragged and weak. She made no other motion to stand up. “Why did I let you convince me to come here?”

They were the first words anyone had heard her speak since they found the old man, and they sounded heavy with grief. Akane had been unable to mourn with the other participants present, so tearing her away from the old man’s bedside while she was alone would be quite a task. So he wasn’t going to try – they had a few minutes to spare. Carlos walked over to her and sat by her side. “Ma, I’m so sorry,” he said, and moved to embrace her.

Akane leaned away from him. “There was ‘trap’ written all over that invitation. But you and your optimism… It was infectious. ‘If it’s really him, it’s an opportunity you can’t let go to waste.’ And I believed you!” She sighed and looked around the infirmary, at all the scattered puzzle pieces. “Look where that got us.”

She’s right. It’s my fault we’re in this Nonary Game. I might as well let my BP drop to 0.

Carlos shook off the intense thought as best he could. He didn’t know where it had come from; it wasn’t something he had ever thought before. He decided the stress of the situation was messing with his head and tried to move on to more important matters.

“Are you angry with me?” he said, cautiously. He had been subject to Akane’s anger plenty of times being raised by her. She could really scream and it was terrifying.

“I’m not angry,” replied Akane, making him breathe a sigh of relief. “I just wish you understood, Carlos. Being invited here was the first time I had thought of Junpei in weeks. I was finally forgetting him. Soon it wouldn’t have mattered to me whether he was alive or dead, and it would have been for the best.”

Somehow, Carlos doubted that Akane could ever really forget Junpei Tenmyouji. When they found the body, Akane had warned Carlos with a glance not to let on to the other players that he recognized him. But Carlos did recognize him. The round glasses, the angular jawline, the messy way he styled his hair, and the brow furrowed with determination that he somehow wore even in death. Even with gray hair, wrinkles, and the fact that he was dead and had no idea he was trapped in a sadistic game – lucky bastard – the face of the child in Akane’s photograph jumped out at him. It was burned into Carlos’s memory, and he wasn’t the one who had been in love with Junpei.

But Akane seemed determined to tell herself lies. “Some reunions are never meant to happen.”

All reunions happen eventually. I can see Maria again, if I die.

This thought echoed louder and it clung to him. To shoo it away, Carlos had to shut his eyes and dig deep into his mind; he struggled for several moments and worried that Akane might have noticed. But she was lost staring at Junpei.

“Is that really what you want?” Carlos said when he got his bearings again. “Nuh-uh. I don’t believe it. You must have had something you wanted to tell him. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”

Akane glanced down. She twisted the diamond ring she wore on her right hand. It was an accessory she always wore at home but never left the house with, choosing instead to keep it in an old safe she’d found. Carlos wondered why she would bring it all the way to the moon.

“If it’s closure you’re looking for, say what you wish you could say. Right now. Even if he can’t respond, you’ll have gotten it off your chest.”

“Hmm.” Akane pondered this for a moment, then nodded with conviction and rose to her feet. She walked around to the other side of the bed, then placed her hand on top of Junpei’s. Carlos covered his mouth but Akane was unfazed by the dried blood coating him. Gently, she uncrossed his arms so that his right palm was open and up. Then, she twisted off her diamond ring.

“Have I ever told you how I got this ring, Carlos?” she said.

“You have.”

“No, I haven’t,” said Akane matter-of-factly. She held it between her fingers and held it up to the fluorescent light, studying the way it twinkled like she was appraising a piece of scrap. “The last time I saw Junpei, we were participating together in a Mars mission simulation.”

Instinctively, Carlos pulled his legs up onto the bed and crossed them and cupped his chin in his hands. It had been so long since Akane told him one of her stories. He felt like he was twelve again, sitting by the bonfire after supper and watching this hermitic old woman bare her soul to someone for the first time in decades.

“I could tell Junpei was there on a mission. He was there with some associates of his, and they always seemed to be conspiring something together. Whatever it was, they were awfully focused, cutting themselves off from the rest of us.” Akane smiled sadly. “But a few days into the experiment, Junpei broke his focus to approach me. He wanted to apologize, and reconcile over astronaut ice cream – I was too in love to care how corny that was. I was at a low point in my life, and when he reached out to me, I felt hope for the future for the first time in a long time.”

She sighed and her face fell. “But then I blinked. Several days of my life were gone, the world was in chaos, Junpei was nowhere to be found, and I had this ring on my right hand. I knew that he had given it to me, but not when or why.” Her gaze floated to Junpei’s face. “That’s what I wanted to ask him. Because he can’t answer, the most I can do is this.”

She pressed the ring into Junpei’s open palm. His fingers creaked as she closed his fist over it. Carlos knit his brow when he realized what she was doing.

“Thank you for the ring, Junpei,” said Akane in a whisper. “It was cherished and protected. But it’s a gift I can no longer accept. I am not the girl you gave this to anymore. I hardly remember her myself. But had it been me back then instead of her, knowing what I know now, I would not have taken this ring from you.”

Her voice had gotten tiny, and the way she gazed at Junpei’s unmoving face felt so intimate, Carlos wasn’t sure he should have been listening anymore. But he couldn’t look away. And he couldn’t stop it from happening, either.

“I’m a mother now, and it’s made me more practical,” she continued. “I know I can’t keep thinking of the way things might have been. I’m too old. It hurts to dream. But I can’t stop myself from doing exactly that, not as long as I’m being constantly reminded of you. So it’s time for me to let go.”

She knelt as if to whisper in his ear. “I’m sorry, Junpei. I love you.” Laying a hand on the one of his that held the ring, she leaned forward and ghosted her lips over his pale forehead.

And there it was. A farewell kiss. Akane had cut her final tethers to the person she loved the most (she still had the picture, but if she could throw away a diamond, she could easily crumple up a piece of photo paper). Junpei was an integral part of who she was – ten years of hearing her reminisce had taught Carlos that – and now she was rending herself in two. That was the opposite of what Carlos had wanted for her, and yet he himself had led her to this point. Akane was a broken woman now and it was his fault. He deserved to die for it.

He deserved to die.

I deserve to die.

Carlos wrenched his eyes shut but he couldn’t stop it this time. This was a thought that demanded its presence be known and didn’t seem keen on leaving. It mocked his attempts to turn his attention back to comforting Akane. His own fear had nothing to do with it; this was something foreign and malicious, and as soon as Akane began to speak again, he knew what it was.

“Thankyoucarlos Iwasatleastabletogetsomethingresolved” Every syllable was enunciated as beautifully as she always did, yet they bled together in Carlos’s ears, dozens of them crammed into a single second. Already he was getting a headache listening to her, and he was terrified what would happen if he opened his eyes.

Carlos hadn’t lived through the worst of the plague, but Akane had educated him on every gruesome detail. Scholarly reports were few and far between, but Akane had a nose for scientific research. Among his many homeschooling materials on the epidemiology of Radical-6 were a handful of accounts from survivors. The way they described their symptoms had given him nightmares when he was twelve:

The world around you picks up speed and you’re unable to keep up. All the information you’re forced to take in makes you dizzy and fatigued. You slur, and you shamble, and you start to overheat. And all of this becomes worse and worse until you’re cured or forced to end it yourself.

Turned out Carlos’s dreams could never approximate how awful the real thing was. He opened his eyes to see the world swimming before him. The flickering of the lights became a blinding strobe effect, and he’d have sworn he was watching Junpei start to decay.

“Misskurashikiitsalmosttime”

The mere act of turning his head was enough to scramble his brain. It didn’t help his dizziness as he tried to process the red blur hovering by the front of the partition. Diana was a weird one as it was, even older than Akane but with mannerisms like those of a girl Carlos’s age. Right now, the way she flounced as she spoke and fiddled neurotically with her hair and batted her eyes at Carlos seemed more cartoonish than ever as her every action seemed to be on fast-forward.

“Whyareyoustaringcarlos? Likewhatyousee?”

“Wewillhavenoneofthatdiana” Akane put her hand protectively on Carlos’s back and he tried not to recoil at the touch. Her hand was warm, too warm. It was as if even the molecules heating the air were moving too quickly for him.

Oh god, it felt like he was in an oven. He wished it would hurry up and cook him from the inside out already.

“Letsgo” Akane was already halfway to Diana and shouting, “Areyoucomingcarlos?” by the time Carlos was able to even get one foot back on the floor. Seeing him struggling, she was back at his side in moments, helping him along with the first few steps until he could no longer take it and collapsed onto his knees. Diana soon rushed over as well.

Consensus among epidemiologists was that the suicidal impulses were a direct result of the disease’s other symptoms – being forced to go through life at a snail’s pace would inevitably become too much to bear. But it had also been noted that victims would often spend their final moments attempting to rationalize the decision to end their own lives, blaming it on life circumstances or preexisting mental conditions, or even declaring it to be a spiritual act.

Carlos’s last lucid thought as the two elderly women carried him out of the infirmary was about how he’d failed Akane. He was going to leave her alone without even the memory of Junpei to keep her company – a reason to stay alive, if there ever was one. Not hours later he would be back in the infirmary, twisting that sentiment to make himself seem in the right: Akane didn’t need a son like him, and he couldn’t live with his guilt.

Kyle would subdue him just in time before he revealed to everybody his Ma’s ring in the old man’s hand.