Chapter Text
Kanade Tachibana had lived a good life. There was no objective way to judge the merit of her existence, and she wasn’t about to try no matter how monotonous things got. She knew because God had decided to reward her with the chance to fulfill the dream she’d had ever since she’d woken up with another person’s heart beating inside of her a lifetime ago. Every star under the sky was hers to seize with that heart in her chest, stretching out her hand toward the twinkling future she’d received from a donor that existed only in a photo survived by her memory. Other hands had reached out for that future with her, some larger, several smaller until she blinked and they’d grown larger than hers. Her own hand had shrunk, weighed down by time far more rapidly than her companions by the object of her desires. Still the heart within her beat strongly, an unflinching bastion, never complaining, never deferring even when her hand fell limp. Kanade Tachibana had therefore lived a good life.
He was a literal part of her, a gift she’d wanted nothing more than to be able to express her eternal gratitude for. Now her hands had lost the weakness and medical tubing, though the heart that had allowed them to move in the first place remained. No matter where she went, the burden of unresolved debt followed, pounding in her chest and in the back of her skull. But this too had been accounted for by providence; she had a role in this world, and accomplishing it was as good a way to pass the time as any. With that sort of logic, perhaps she had actually lived a heinous life, for what cruel god would punish their wayward follower to purgatory, a world meant to help people move on where doing so was impossible for her?
Such thoughts were a waste of time. She’d tried every manner of self-expression to shake them out, from novelization to blogging to interpretive dance, none of which managing to so much as muffle the metronome in her chest. Her current vice was gardening. Brugmansias weren’t loud or expressive, but they were hers and she was theirs, always theirs and always on hand to care for and nurture them. Dependency was a form of distraction too, and in exchange her flowers never wilted on her. From the student council’s room she could see them, drooping away from the oppressive summer heat as if they could flee into the school to escape blistering punishment. The students weren’t faring much better, over-exaggerated hand waving and loud complaints about how hot it was and wow, are we ever going to break this dry spell? Kanade had heard the same conversations long enough to get caught muttering them in her sleep. It had gotten to the point that some other humans had mistaken her for one of them.
Them.
They weren’t human beyond their appearance, soulless automations that imitated the genuine article while making up 99% of the student body and 100% of the faculty of the school she had found herself stuck in. Someone had called them NPCs lifetimes ago and the name had stuck despite some people treating it like a derogatory term. What few people existed in this world were nothing like her, teenagers who had passed on in the devil’s pick of all manner of gruesome and traumatizing ways. They were flowers wilting and drooping under the baggage God had shouldered them with to the breaking point that had ended their lives short, and it was Kanade’s self-appointed job as student council president to aid them and help them move on from this world.
There was something beautiful about that second chance Kanade presumed her constantly rotating list of friends received while she remained stuck. That beauty borne from the last expressions of those she’d sent off, of hope finally growing out of such despairing lives, was exactly why she didn’t need a second chance. The hands she’d held in her time here had never experienced the feeling of aging beyond an age where growth was measured and celebrated rather than expected, perhaps even dreaded. Her age to her had always just been a marker for what medication she was eligible to take to battle a body that was trying its hardest to quit on her. Perhaps it wasn’t much of a reward, but it wouldn’t be human to not desire a trophy for beating back the doomsday clock back just one more day, just to prove that such a feat was possible. By that logic Kanade probably wasn’t human anymore.
Kanade wasn’t sure if she’d spent more time alive or dead at this point. Nobody ever stuck around long enough to help her keep track, and her inability to age or get sick didn’t help her count either. At some point it had stopped being quantified in years, replaced with people. She was Rin Miwa Gina Shino Kotomi Mika Tomio Daisuke Hikaru Takumi days old today, measured in the lengths of time each of her closest friends had managed to hold out with her. It was a noble effort, and one that had conditioned Kanade to never get more involved in her job than she had to. This afterlife wasn’t designed for people like her, it was meant to help others move on. The days when nobody was around didn’t count.
A shrill bell reminded her of this fact as she turned her head to regard the empty room behind her. In her time spent observing the lunch hour, half of it had elapsed beneath her notice. This was a calculated mistake, of course. She was always there to help her fellow students, but lunch time belonged to her unless someone was on fire, in which case a fire extinguisher was to be referenced first for advice. As she made her way across the grounds towards the imposing cafeteria building, several NPCs accosted her and asked how she was, how was the job treating her, was she feeling alright, did she need sunscreen? Polite deferral was usually enough to help her wade through the crowds. Appointing the rest of the student council happened around this time of year, meaning that everyone would pay more attention to her than she could afford to spend on them. Upon entering the cafeteria, she noticed a few people chatting amongst themselves, some even conversing with the fakes like they didn’t realize they weren’t actual people. To be fair, she only knew who was who for certain because of her access to the student roster as student council president. It wasn’t Kanade’s business what anyone did unless they talked to her, but she still made a point of avoiding eye contact. The current batch of students didn’t have that anyone she could call a friend, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to start down that path again yet. For a heart that wasn’t hers, it could certainly get cut and bleed her emotions out whenever it was most inconvenient.
As she purchased a mabo tofu with her meal ticket and looked for a place to sit, a table by one of the floor-to-ceiling windows caught her eye. A girl with muted red hair and a disheveled school uniform was stabbing at a piece of tofu violently with a single chopstick, lifting it up to her mouth then placing it down again without eating it. The tofu would then be unceremoniously removed with a second chopstick before the process would be repeated with another piece of tofu. Kanade hadn’t meant to stare, nor had she expected the girl to suddenly look up and wave at her jovially. Though she’d hoped to return to the student council room, the girl had made enough of a scene that Kanade figured she could get away with reprimanding the delinquent and moving on with her lunch. Balancing her tray in front of her carefully, Kanade made her way over to the cheerful student. “Hey there! It’s Tachibana-san, right? Do you like tofu too?”
Having not expected the question, Kanade looked down at her plate. She liked mabo tofu, right? She must like it, or she wouldn’t have ordered it. Her actions had been unchanging for so long that she hadn’t had the need to consider what she liked or wanted for long enough to nearly forget such basic facts. The time spent pondering this conundrum lasted long enough for Hatsune to laugh awkwardly. “It’s not a test, you know. Are you really bad at communicating or something? Not the sort of quality you’d want in a student council president.”
“You shouldn’t waste food like that,” Kanade informed the girl redundantly, silently lamenting how much she sounded like a fake person.
The girl tilted her head, red hair spilling over her uniform like a cascade of rolling flames. “Really? I was just messing around. I was definitely gonna eat it, I was just trying to see if I could get the same amount of energy from pretending to eat it. Afterlife rules and all that, right? NPCs like you seem to get away with ordering the same thing every day.”
Kanade was unsure how to respond to this presumption. There was no precedent for such a function of the afterlife that would even suggest that this strategy was effective, never mind what sort of advantage this girl suspected it could provide. Among other rules that were explained by Kanade to all newcomers, she had made it clear that nobody could die in this world, though experiencing pain in all its forms was possible, including starvation. Chiding herself mentally that it was entirely likely this girl was suffering from some sort of amnesia, Kanade found it within herself to smile slightly. “I see. Please make sure you eat your food before class starts again. And please don’t call me or the non-humans NPCs. You’ll spread confusion and it bothers some people.” That was supposed to be the end of the conversation, but a loud gasp from the girl chained Kanade to the redhead’s side with the stares every nearby table suddenly locked on to her at the sound.
“Wait, you’re saying you’re actually a human too? Oh my God I’m so sorry! I thought you were one of those NPCs since you were the president and all. Wait, I mean non-humans? Nah, NPCs sounds way better. Oh man, wait until the others hear about this. They all think you’re not a person too, you know. When they find out they’ll- oh!” The girl cut herself off as Kanade sat down abruptly next to her with her food.
“Let’s eat together first,” Kanade suggested as forcefully as she could muster.
It wasn’t her most innovative strategy, but points were only awarded for results, even in death. The girl smiled brightly, picking up a spoon and refocusing on her food almost immediately. “Sure! I’m Hatsune, by the way. Hatsune… no, just Hatsune. Can’t remember how that one’s supposed to go just yet.”
Kanade knew this story very well. With little else to do, categorically compiling data on every current student who would actually notice if she decided to not go to school, humans included, was a valuable pastime. “Kanade Tachibana,” she reintroduced herself with a small nod. “Please do not tell the others about me. I prefer to keep a cordial distance between myself and you all.”
“Mhy’s phat?” Hatsune asked around a mouthful of tofu far too large for her jaw.
“You remember how this afterlife works, right?” Kanade asked.
It was a sensitive question for people, and not one Kanade usually just jumped in and asked to newer amnesiacs, but she felt a sense of ease around this person that was uncharacteristically lowering her guard. Hatsune nodded, wiping sauce away with a napkin. “Yep! We all died, and now we’re here. And if we act like good students, we get obliterated and move on, or get reincarnated, or something, right?”
Kanade nodded quietly before pointing to herself. “I cannot obliterate, as you put it. All my friends came and went a long time ago. So I prefer to help people when I can without getting too close. You could call it a job, I guess.”
The president had been looking at her food as she spoke, faces of people she’d known and the one she wanted to know forming and disappearing as she swirled her fork around absentmindedly. When she looked up again, Hatsune had tears in her eyes. “You can’t move on?! That’s so sad though! Why not? Let me help you!” She snatched one of Kanade’s hands in her own as she spoke, her impassioned plea drawing even more attention from nearby tables.
At this point some onlookers were starting to gather while others were moving away in annoyance. This was the exact situation Kanade wanted to avoid. When someone caused problems, they obviously were a real person. The NPCs only ever did the exact same things every day, never wavering from their prescribed path unless a human interacted with them to break the routine. It was the primary reason being the student council president was so convenient and limiting at the same time. It gave her power over the NPCs, but it gave them some power over her in exchange. Drawing attention to this might bring more people near her. If the situation wasn’t defused quickly, she’d have the entire human student body descending on her for help obliterating, and she’d do it for them regardless of whether they actually needed her help or not. “Please calm down. I can’t obliterate because I’m waiting for someone,” Kanade explained, placing her free hand on her heart. “I was given a gift that allowed me to live a longer and more fulfilling life. My only regret was that I wasn’t able to thank the man who gave me that gift in the first place. I can only assume that’s why I’m here.”
Most people would have asked what gift Kanade meant when she explained that story, but this time Kanade was met with a folding of arms and an irritated tapping of one foot on the ground. “Really? Aw, I don’t think I can help you then. Sorry about that. Wait, have you tried talking to the other people here? Maybe one of them is who you’re looking for!”
Kanade frowned into her food. “No. I’ll be able to tell when he gets here.”
“How?”
“I’ll know.”
The conversation faded away, the prattle of voices around them absorbing the empty space in the cafeteria like they’d never spoken in the first place. Kanade wasn’t sure what had inspired Hatsune to stop talking, but she wasn’t about to complain. When Kanade was certain that anyone originally watching had given up, she made her move to end the encounter. “I should get going. I have some work to do,” Kanade lied, rising with her half-eaten tray in hand. “It was nice to speak with you, Hatsune.”
As she walked away, the clearing of a throat behind her caused her to pause and turn around. Hatsune was smiling confidently at her for a reason Kanade couldn’t fathom. “I’m going to help you, Kana-chan!” Hatsune declared, giving her a thumbs up.
Kanade tilted her head, unwilling to think about what that meant. Filing the student away as someone to avoid when possible, Kanade turned away awkwardly and returned to the student council room, trying to put the thoughts of the student she’d spoken to out of her mind. If she was lucky, Hatsune would regain her memories and move on before she could cause problems for the rest of the student body, or more accurately her.
It was two days later that Kanade’s machinations met their premature demise. She was leaving the chess club’s room after indulging in a game with one of the NPCs that had ended in her resounding defeat. Takumi had shown her how to “train” them to play adaptively to her playstyle, and Kanade was willing to try anything to mix up her admittedly trite lifestyle at least once. On this particular late afternoon, she had failed to account for a certain red-headed high schooler tracking her down before she could escape to her dorm and her studies. “Kana-chan! Kana-chan!” she called, waving her arms wildly at the student council president.
For a moment Kanade considered walking away, but there wasn’t enough land surrounding the school for her to hide in, at least not that she was aware of. Instead, she turned and allowed the girl to approach her. When Hatsune did, she doubled over, hands resting on her knees as she caught her breath. “H-here you are. I went to the student council room but they said you were out making rounds, so I ran around the school looking for you.”
“You could have waited for me to return,” Kanade pointed out, moving to the wall to avoid getting in the way of other students.
“Nah, I like running around. It feels freeing, I think,” Hatsune denied helpfully. “Anyways, big news! I figured out how to solve your problem!”
Kanade raised an eyebrow. There was exactly zero chance this girl could solve her problem, but there couldn’t be any harm in hearing her out. Hatsune took Kanade’s silence as acquiescence to continue. “Right, so I was thinking about how you didn’t want to make any friends because they’d all get obliterated and leave you behind eventually. I thought ‘Wow, that’s sad! How can I help Kana-chan make friends?’ Then it hit me: I could be your friend, couldn’t I?” Hatsune beamed like she’s come to the revelation of the century.
“Why you?” Was all Kanade could think to ask, rude as it was.
Hatsune tsked like she’d just given the wrong answer to an obvious question. “Because I have amnesia, silly! If I don’t remember why I died or how my life wasn’t fulfilling, then I can’t move on either! That means we’re stuck here together, ergo we have to be friends. And that has to be why God put us here, right?”
There was no easy way to explain the intricacies of the afterlife to this girl, and Kanade had tried every method in the book on others who were much more proficient in absorbing and retaining information. Her own inability to impart essential knowledge was often part of the problem as well. Instead, Kanade settled for the blunt approach. “Amnesia is common here. Most people start off remembering nothing and eventually remember everything as they live their school life, allowing them to move on. You’re not the first person to come to me with this idea. You should focus on living a fulfilling school life and come to me if there’s anything I can do to help you.”
“But that’s not good enough!” Hatsune insisted. “What sort of god would stick you here when you can’t do the same thing as everyone else? It’s not fair, and I’m not going to stand for it! Aren’t people here because they didn’t get their fair shot at life? It’s just cruel that you’re being denied that just because someone gave you a gift, isn’t it?”
There was silence for a moment as Kanade’s expression became colder despite barely adjusting her features. “I had my fair shot because of that gift,” Kanade reminded Hatsune icily. “If this is the price I have to pay to realize my goal, so be it.” With that, Kanade walked away again, ignoring the tugging of the heart that wasn’t hers telling her to take back what she’d said.
Hatsune disappeared for several more days after that conversation. Kanade had begun to think that perhaps she’d actually listened to her and managed to obliterate herself in record time, but Hatsune showed up to classes again with the start of a new school week. She received some scolding from the NPC teachers, but otherwise everything continued as normal, with Kanade monitoring the people and making sure they were doing what they needed to help move on while running the school’s affairs from the president’s chair. Until a small note landed on her desk in the middle of homeroom, she’d tricked herself into thinking someone had actually heeded her warning. It was tempting to merely throw the note away, but Kanade decided to read it in the event that it was a student coming to her with a serious matter that couldn’t be described in public.
What’s your favorite color?
-Hatsune
Kanade turned the paper over to ensure that she wasn’t missing something. A glance behind her revealed a grinning Hatsune four rows away, giving her an overt thumbs up. Even if Kanade wanted to answer, there was no way she’d be able to get away with passing the note back to Hatsune with the professor watching from the front of the class. Instead, she pocketed the note and waited patiently for homeroom to end. When it did, she got up from her seat and walked over to Hatsune. The girl looked up expectantly with an air of innocence that almost compelled Kanade to look away. “Why did you put a note on my desk during class?” Kanade asked, displaying the offending document to Hatsune.
“You said to come to you if I needed help anything, so here I am,” she responded simply. “Are you gonna answer my request?”
Yellow eyes searched soft violet ones for some sort of ulterior motive and found nothing. Kanade would have written this off as an obtuse prank had it not come from the girl in front of her. “Silver,” she replied, a hand finding her hair to explain her choice for her.
Hatsune nodded intelligently, pulling out a notebook with a chunk of a page conspicuously missing. “Alright. Silver, got it. Thank you, student council president. I’ll come to you first if I need any more of your wisdom.”
The student bounced out of her seat, for what purpose Kanade couldn’t fathom given the precious little time they had before their next class started. She waved at Kanade as she exited the classroom, leaving the president standing there puzzled. Nobody had ever asked her a question like that before, not even her friends. Had she imparted some misplaced aura of seniority in them that made her that unapproachable? Why was it that she didn’t know the favorite color of any of her old friends? “It shouldn’t matter,” Kanade whispered to herself as she returned to her seat just in time for the next class to start.
It wasn’t as if these facts were the sort of thing a friendship had to be predicated on. Perhaps Hatsune was simply picking Kanade’s brain for information that might help her remember something. When framed in that way, Kanade figured she could tolerate a polite question or two from the girl.
How old are you?
-Hatsune
Hatsune dug this note out of the trash following the end of the school day. Another note about the results was made in her journal, and new battle strategies were drafted. If she kept relying on the NPCs to pass notes for her, there was a good chance she’d get caught eventually anyways. When Kanade arrived at class the next morning, a fresh note was already on her desk.
Sorry about that. What I meant was what do you like to do for fun?
-Hatsune
Kanade turned towards Hatsune’s seat only to find it unoccupied. There wasn’t enough time before class started, meaning there was only one realistic option for Kanade to get a response in if she didn’t want to wait for class to end. Flipping Hatsune’s note around, she penned a brief answer and deposited it in the most inconspicuous corner of Hatsune’s desk that she could. As long as it was coming from her, she could at least pretend she was on official business for the school. When Hatsune found her way into her seat several classes later, the first thing she did was unfurl the note she’d received and read it, much to the irritation of the teacher glaring at her. “Gardening, huh?” she mused, ignoring the repeated requests to sit down as she started scribbling in her notebook again.
Another day passed, and Kanade’s next note was found in the gardening club’s storage room, resting on top of a watering can decorated with painted sunflowers and rain clouds. As she knelt to pick it up, she became acutely aware that she was being watched. The gaze of NPCs didn’t feel like anything to her after all this time, meaning that whoever was observing her was a person, and likely the same one responsible for the note in her hand.
Where are you from?
-Hatsune
What had started as a somewhat interesting diversion from her daily schedule had grown tedious far more quickly than Kanade had expected. After filling the watering can with a nearby hose, Kanade walked over to her flowerbed, balancing the watering can with both hands. She wasn’t actually sure if the flowers she was growing could die, but there was an indescribable satisfaction she got out of seeing them bloom more brightly over time as she took care of them. However, a large red weed was growing in her garden this afternoon that required her attention first. Kanade approached the poorly hidden Hatsune, taking the rare chance to stare down at someone for once as Hatsune attempted to blend in behind a flower bed. The two made eye contact, Kanade unsure what to say and Hatsune hoping against any reasonable hope that Kanade couldn’t see her so long as she remained still. Finally, the strain on Hatsune’s leg muscles from kneeling was too much, and she collapsed onto her back, looking up at Kanade serenely. “Afternoon, Kana-chan. Lovely weather for a nap, don’t you think?”
“Why are you asking me these questions?” Kanade asked, holding up the latest note.
“Am I bothering you?” Hatsune asked, tilting her head to one side.
That was a more complicated question to answer than Kanade was expecting. She could easily say yes and simply be done with the whole ordeal, but doing so was clearly against her mission statement of trying to help the souls who came to the afterlife move on. Either choice would have poor implications for her, and it was only Hatsune sneezing as she attempted to sit up that jarred Kanade back into reality. “No,” she answered without considering all the consequences she’d just been summarizing in her head. “I’m from Tokyo.” It was only technically true, with Kanade’s family having moved to Tokyo to accommodate her health issues, but Tokyo was the only place she’d lived in long enough to call a home that she could remember.
“Great!” Hatsune praised, whipping her journal out once more. “Don’t worry, everything will become clear in time, I promise.”
“If you have other questions, you should ask them while we’re here,” Kanade suggested as she started to water the flowerbed gingerly.
To Kanade’s confusion, Hatsune shook her head. “Nope, can’t do that. Buuuut, if you’re looking to speed up the process, you could always respond to my notes with notes of your own.”
“I don’t understand,” Kanade admitted, looking up from her watering. “Passing notes in class is against school rules.”
“Then we just have to not get caught, silly. Don’t tell me you’ve been here this long and you haven’t figured out how to bend the rules a little? Not even a bit? What’s the point of being here if you can’t enjoy yourself?” A few molecules of air were pinched between Hatsune’s fingers to prove her point.
There were a multitude of ways to bend and even break the established rules of this world. The Angel Player for creating supernatural abilities that Kanade had discovered and refined over the years was more than enough proof of that. What really mattered was the implications of using it for something so mundane. “If I pass notes with you, will it help you move on?” Kanade asked bluntly.
Hatsune literally leapt on the opportunity, seizing Kanade’s hands and causing her heart to skip a beat for the first time in ages. “YES! This is perfect, Kana-chan. We’re both in this together now, so don’t give up no matter what, okay?”
As far as Kanade could tell, there was nothing to give up on, but she nodded along with the girl’s over-enthusiastic tempo regardless. Cruel as it was, as long as she saw Hatsune as nothing more than another fake person to while away time with, they could both get what they wanted. The first note Kanade received came during homeroom once more, this one asking what her favorite place in the school was. This time, however, the air was tense. Homeroom was the one class where both people and NPCs alike paid more attention to the class president, so getting away with passing a note was all the more difficult. She could have the NPCs do it, but that would start rumors she didn’t want to have to figure out how to quell. The rumor that she was some sort of angel because she once saved a student from falling down the cafeteria steps had never been shaken from her, despite it happening years ago. She wasn’t confident in her throwing arm either, meaning that she’d have to rely on the abilities granted to her by the Angel Player. When the teacher’s back was turned, Kanade made her move. “Hatsune,” she whispered, her barely audible voice traveling through the room and directly into Hatsune’s ear.
As she spoke, she threw the paper as hard as she could in Hatsune’s direction. The paper flew like a bullet, faster than the human eye could process, before slamming into a barely exposed section of Hatsune’s chair and fluttering to the ground like it had fallen from the ceiling. Kanade’s extraordinary physical abilities were a gift from the Angel Player, though not one she’d ever had much of a reason to delve into beyond the surface level. It was primarily used for making her life easier and pushing the boundaries of this world she found herself in. She wasn’t exactly fighting enemies on a daily basis that would warrant such a tool, after all. Hatsune, completely unaware of what had happened, simply stared at the note for a moment before accepting it without question.
At the time Kanade hadn’t realized it, but it was at this point that she had locked herself in to responding to all of Hatsune’s notes, regardless of the time she sent them or where they happened to be found. While the notes she received on a semi-daily basis in class were simple enough, whenever she found a note in the gardening club or the dorms she’d have to track Hatsune down. It wasn’t as though she didn’t have time to wait around in the cafeteria and classrooms for her pen pal, but the constant exposure to the risk of being accosted by people and NPCs alike was more draining than she expected. Overall it was a more cumbersome task than she’d initially anticipated, but the mystery of where all her efforts were supposedly going in the form of Hatsune’s notebook was an amusing enough distraction that Kanade felt obliged to continue. If nothing else, she could put her struggles down as part of her duties. The other major change after this note was that Hatsune barely spoke to her. The girl was cordial enough if Kanade approached her, but she made no further attempt to initiate contact with her new pen pal besides her notes. This was alright, though. If Hatsune thought this was helping her, then Kanade was fulfilling her role perfectly, and the cordial distance was exactly what she wanted.
Kanade had stopped keeping track of days beyond using them to determine when school was and wasn’t in, but she had noticed that it was a Wednesday when a human came into the student council room for the first time since she’d started passing notes with Hatsune. He was a stocky boy, plump features concealing what Kanade identified as abandoned strength in the way he walked from years of training now neglected. “Ah, you’re the student council president, Tachibana-san, correct?” the student asked, his voice betraying uncertainty. “I heard you could help if we had any problems.”
The few NPCs in the room looked between their president and the newcomer curiously, offering as much assistance as ever. “What can I do for you?” Kanade asked, stepping away from the window she’d been staring out of.
“W-well, you see, I was wondering if someone I know, ah, I mean knew, like, in the past and stuff, and uh, hold on, let me try again. I knew a girl when I was alive and since I heard you’ve been in this world for a long time you might have, you know, run into her at some point since she, uh, passed on before me, so I thought I’d ask if she’d ever been here.” He fidgeted as he spoke, pigeon-toed feet shuffling nervously.
“What was her name?”
“It was Mira. Did you ever meet her?”
“No, I’ve never met a Mira,” Kanade answered instantly.
“Oh,” the boy looked down, shoulders drooping. “Ah, okay, then. Sorry to bother you.”
“Sorry,” Kanade apologized as the boy turned to leave, the word slipping out before she could stop herself.
Instantly the student rounded on her, waving his hands in front of him apologetically. “Oh no, it was my fault, sorry! Please don’t hurt me gotta go bye!” He took off with speed that didn’t suit his build, disappearing from the room as suddenly as he’d appeared.
Kanade looked at herself for a moment. Was she really that intimidating to the other people at this school? She’d only ever killed anyone who had asked to be killed to prove that they couldn’t die or get sick in this world. Discipline was only necessary when a student flagrantly refused to follow the rules of the school, which fortunately only happened rarely. Otherwise, her polite distance was supposed to ensure that the students had all the room they needed to work out their personal problems and obliterate themselves, ideally without her input at all beyond introductions. For some odd reason, a feeling within Kanade’s borrowed heart was tugging her to go speak to the boy again, like she could magically conjure up some memories to give him as easily as she had learned how to craft herself abilities using the Angel Player. A small part of her wondered if the reason her reputation had developed so poorly was because of her poor communication skills, but she brushed the dour thought aside. If anything, it simply had to be a burden of her position, nothing more.
He wasn’t the first person to come asking her about friends, family, even enemies that may have passed through the hallowed halls of the school, though the frequency had declined exponentially over time as Kanade’s answer almost never wavered. The largest impact this interruption had made on her was that it brought her hunger to the forefront of her attention. Dismissing the NPCs for the day, Kanade made her way to the cafeteria. She had planned to only swing by long enough to pick up her lunch and eat on the way back to class, but sitting down was suddenly more appealing. It was only happenstance that Kanade chose to seek out the seat next to Hatsune when she noticed her in the cafeteria. She had spotted the boy from before sitting with several other humans, but she wasn’t acknowledged, so she didn’t approach them. “Heya, Kana-chan,” Hatsune greeted kindly, already nearly through her lunch. “You finished with the student council early.”
“I did,” Kanade agreed, most of her attention focused on her plate. “Have you remembered anything yet?”
“That eager to get rid of me, eh?” Hatsune joked, her smile fading when she failed to see any humor in Kanade’s expression. “Well, no, not yet. I feel like it’s right there too, like everything’s in front of me but it gets fuzzy when I try to focus on it. Ah well. Are you here to drop off the next note?”
Kanade shook her head, waiting until she’d swallowed her mouthful of tofu before she spoke. “Am I scary to people?” she asked, eyes flitting over to the huddle of people on the other side of the cafeteria.
Hatsune’s eyebrows raised drastically high. “What? No, you’re Kana-chan, my pen pal. Unless you’re trying to be scary. Are you trying to be scary?”
“No. But I think people don’t approach me because they think I’m intimidating,” Kanade guessed, no other explanation quite making sense to her.
“Stand up for a second?” Hatsune requested, Kanade complying quietly.
Even standing up, Kanade failed to rise even a full head above Hatsune’s seated height. “Yeah, I’d sooner mistake you for a lost child than an intimidating student council president,” Hatsune decided, patting the girl once on the head.
“I’m much older than you are,” Kanade insisted more forcefully than she intended to, her glare sending chills down Hatsune’s spine.
The amnesiac shivered as Kanade sat back down. “Okay, maybe the others have a point about the whole intimidating thing. But they all know you’re just trying to help, I think. Didn’t you say you try not to get too close so you don’t hurt yourself?” Kanade hadn’t put it like that, but Hatsune’s blunt approach to conversation was a quirk she’d gotten used to.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to help people,” Kanade countered, shoveling down another bite of tofu to put a point on her statement. “Until I can move on, I want to help them. It’s what’s right. But I can’t just approach them.”
“Real catch-22 situation, huh?” Hatsune snickered rudely. “Sorry, sorry. But don’t worry. Hatsune’s on the case, so you just keep doing your best and things’ll turn out right as rain soon, got it?”
“Why are you doing this?” Kanade asked.
She’d posed the question to the redhead plenty of times, even in notes, but had never gotten a straight answer. Her responses had ranged from nothing to the teachers had put her up to it to she was planning to create a clone of her using adulterated mabo tofu and take over the school. Today, however, Hatsune wore a more contemplative expression. “I was sick for a long time,” Hatsune admitted. “I remember that, at least. Most of my communication was with doctors or my brother. Day after day we filled out the same wellness checklists, asked the same questions day in and day out. It got to the point where I’d write the answers on notes in advance just to get it out of the way sooner. It’s funny, though. I can’t remember what was on any of them. I know they were questions about me, but none of them come to mind. So I thought hey, if I ask you enough questions about you, maybe it’ll jog my memory and I’ll remember what happened to me.”
Kanade absorbed the story silently. It wasn’t the logical conclusion she’d have come to, but she had no right to judge how others handled trying to piece their own broken lives together. “Shouldn’t I be asking you the questions then?” Kanade asked, still trying to figure out exactly how Hatsune’s plan worked in her head.
In response, Hatsune rose, her lunch finished. “Hm, maybe. Why don’t we give that a shot tomorrow? It’s a day off, right? If you don’t mind, of course.”
A single nod was all it took for Hatsune to grin broadly. “Perfect, it’s a date! Meet me here tomorrow evening, got it?” Without waiting for a response, Hatsune took off, pumping her fist like she’d just won some decisive battle.
The exuberant form of Hatsune remained embedded in Kanade’s mind as she muddled her way through her remaining classes. Even without the girl’s notes absorbing all her attention, she still managed to worm her way into the student council president’s mind as she went about her daily tasks before returning to the dorms for the night. She knew what was happening to her, and the decision of whether to let it happen or to remain impassive in her role kept her awake long after she checked the Angel Player and laid down in her bed for the night. The fact that she didn’t technically need sleep thanks to the Angel Player was all too acutely felt when the sun came up without so much as a wink reaching her. Despite her lack of an answer, Kanade still found herself getting dressed and making her way to the cafeteria after doing what she presumed was studying based on the way her books were strewn about. The seat where Hatsune had last spoken to Kanade from now had a note on it, illuminated by a falling sun into an empty cafeteria.
Last question: What is it you want the most right now?
-Hatsune
The last question? Perhaps Hatsune had reached a similar conclusion from the information Kanade had given her. If that truly was the case, then it was her duty to honor this last note before they went their separate ways. It would be easier for Hatsune, of course, but her understanding of the situation made Kanade feel just a little bit better. The problem of how to go about finding her pen pal was unfortunately not included in the note. A quick search of the campus and immediate area returned no results. The NPCs weren’t around when school wasn’t in, meaning that she didn’t have any non-human witnesses to interrogate. It was only happenstance that she ran into the boy who’d approached her yesterday as she went to the student council room to plan her next move. “Oh, excuse me,” he muttered, giving Kanade a much wider berth than was necessary.
“Hold on,” Kanade suddenly insisted, desperate not to lose her entire evening searching for someone she’d managed to lose for days at a time in the past.
“Eep! Yes?”
“Do you know who Hatsune is?”
“You mean the cute redhead? Um, yeah, I guess. We don’t really talk much. Nobody talks to her, really.”
Kanade tilted her head, her original question forgotten for a moment. “Why not?”
“You don’t know?” the boy exclaimed too loudly. “She’s kinda messed up in the head. Whenever you try to talk to her she always asks you a bunch of questions. Some of ‘em are real personal too. Makes people avoid her, like yo- uh, I mean like the teachers, yeah, that.”
“You should be nicer to her,” Kanade insisted, taking a small step forward. “She’s trying to remember who she was.”
“Ah! S-sorry Tachibana-san! I’ll try!”
Somehow, Kanade doubted she was actually getting anywhere with what the boy was treating as a castigation, but it would have to do for now. “Do you know where she is now?”
“Oh, she’s probably in the forest. She always goes there on off days. Couldn’t tell you why though. Last time I asked she said ‘The secrets of this world are buried in the trees.’ Not that that’s a weird thing to say don’t hurt me!”
The forest next to campus was quite a large area to cover in a single evening, but it was the best lead she’d come up with so far. “Thank you,” Kanade nodded in thanks, turning on her heel to leave.
“Uh, no problem!” The boy replied before practically sprinting off.
Making a mental note to try and do something about her image, Kanade made for the forest in record time. Familiar sights blurred around her as she pushed the capabilities of a body and heart that didn’t belong to her beyond human limits. If what she suspected was happening was actually happening, there was no time to lose. Fortunately, she didn’t have to search nearly as long as she thought she would. Hatsune was wandering down the dirt path paved for walkers when Kanade found her, whistling a tune to herself. When she noticed Kanade barreling towards her, she smiled, waving the girl over. “Kana-chan, hey! Over here, quick!”
Kanade instantly slowed down to her normal walking pace to join Hatsune on the forest path. The questioning look she gave her friend was answered with a sheepish grin. “Sorry, I forgot to mention where I was going. You figured it out though, so it’s fine. You’ve been here before, I bet, right?”
There was nowhere in this world Kanade hadn’t been more than a decade’s worth of times, testing boundaries, exploring unknowns, pressing limits. The forest they were in seemed like it would extend forever, but continuing in a single direction inevitably would lead one back to the school. With a single exception, most boundaries to this world were like that. Not that anyone else would be unbelievably bored to the point that they’d dig straight down long enough to find that one exception.
In the time it took Kanade to arrive, the sun had vanished, leaving behind an eerily dark night sky. This was apparently what Hatsune had been counting on. She gripped Kanade’s arm fiercely and pointed upwards in excitement. Kanade squinted through the foliage covering their path, trying to discern what she was supposed to be observing. In the moment she spent attempting to come up with the right words to speak, she got her answer. The stars in the sky slowly lit up, like some god had forgotten they were supposed to be there and was hastily turning them on one by one. As this deity did so, the lights shined down on them through the trees, creating odd flickering patterns on the ground below them and twinkling like morning dew drops above them. “We’re lucky,” Hatsune explained, her eyes fixed on the sight above her. “The moon is new and there’s no clouds. I’ve never seen the stars shine this brightly before.”
“You like stars?” Kanade presumed, noting that they were unusually bright for her experience as well.
Hatsune shook her head. “Not really. But when they come out like this and I’m walking on this path, it almost makes me feel like I’m walking through a bunch of strung-up Christmas trees. I know that sounds silly, but it makes me feel at peace.”
“I don’t think that’s silly,” Kanade whispered without thinking, her eyes fixated above her.
Hatsune smiled at her friend who had stopped paying attention to her. Only when she let Kanade’s arm go did the girl notice herself stretching out as if to pull down the branches and see if the stars really had stopped to rest on them. If they had been this close the whole time, why had she never been able to reach them before? “Why don’t we walk around a bit?” Hatsune suggested, leading Kanade away before she had a chance to respond.
Kanade followed, hiding her small smile by looking away when she noticed Hatsune staring at her. “That’s the first time you’ve smiled at me,” Hatsune noted. “Guess it was worth the trouble of coming out here.”
At this comment Kanade’s expression returned to neutral immediately, eliciting a giggle from Hatsune. “Do you do this every day off?” Kanade guessed, remembering the boy she’d spoken to.
Hatsune nodded. “Ding-dong. One point for Kana-chan. I guess I should be trying to get my memories back or studying or something, but this is more relaxing. Honestly, I don’t think I was ever much of a go-getter.” A playful knock on her own head was the last conversation between Kanade and Hatsune for some time.
It took Kanade a while to properly understand the feeling that was welling up within her. For far longer than she’d been alive she’d watched all sorts of people living their lives, helping where she felt she could. Some time had passed since she felt like she could, but that wasn’t the feeling Kanade was experiencing right now. It was only when a shooting star streaked across the sky and Hatsune pointed it out that Kanade realized what was happening. It had simply been years since she’d seen anything that could be considered truly unique. The familiar cream color of her uniform and the weight its duties carried had blotted out so many of her memories from life as she’d remained stuck in the afterlife that she’d nearly forgotten what it was like to be alive again. Her next realization was that this change hadn’t been an accident. To remember what she was missing was to acknowledge that she was truly trapped, that nobody who came to give her these gifts of new experiences and companionships could stay forever. Had she been alone, she might have allowed herself to tear up. Instead, she settled for pouring her emotions into the glittering Christmas lights above her with a forlorn smile returning to her face that she’d lost a reason to hide. “You wanted to ask me some questions too, didn’t you?” Hatsune gently reminded her pen pal. “Well I’m an open book. Not just because most of the pages are empty.”
Though she didn’t laugh at Hatsune’s joke, Kanade did turn to acknowledge her, which was more than enough for the redhead. “What’s your favorite color?” Kanade asked, no pertinent question coming to her.
“Hm. Probably red, for the same reason you like silver. No, that’s not quite right. It reminds me of my brother when he used to visit me,” Hatsune explained, hands linking behind her back as they walked. “Good question. Only smart people ask that one. Hit me again.”
For some time Kanade threw frivolous questions at Hatsune in the same manner she’d subjected her friend to, though the amnesiac had much less trouble answering than Kanade had for some of the tougher questions like what your dreams were. Apparently she’d always wanted to write or draw manga, whichever one was easier for her. The rate of new questions began to slow as Kanade reached the extent of what she herself had been asked by Hatsune, the two falling into a comfortable silence as they stared up at the Christmas lights above them.
Kanade might have been content to observe the night sky for much longer had she not sensed that the two had been subtly turned around toward the school once more. If she tarried too long, she’d never get the chance to do what she’d originally come here to do. “A friend,” Kanade spoke aloud, startling Hatsune. “You asked what I want the most right now. I know what my answer is supposed to be, but I really do want a friend right now.”
“And I can’t do that for you right?” Hatsune presumed to Kanade’s nod. “Right, because if I just start living it up with you I’ll obliterate faster than the good bread in the cafeteria and you’ll be alone again. You don’t deserve to go through that again and I don’t want to put you through that, even though we are pretty well acquainted thanks to my super awesome plan. As part of that really cool plan, I decided that I’d take it upon myself to solve your problem for you.”
With a dramatic flourish, Hatsune whipped out the notebook Kanade had seen her writing in numerous times since they’d become acquainted. “Ta-da! The ‘Get-to-Know-Kanade-Fast’ notebook! Guaranteed to make you friends faster than you can say ‘mabo tofu’!” She presented the journal to Kanade, who accepted it curiously.
Opening the book, Kanade was greeted by her responses to the many notes Hatsune had written her, often with commentary added on by Hatsune where Kanade had been cajoled into elaborating on some points. Small drawings of relevant facts accompanied some pages, the scope of how much of herself Kanade had freely revealed to Hatsune becoming apparent as she pored over scores of notes. The questions she’d been asking just now barely scratched the surface compared to what Hatsune had managed to elicit from her pen pal. While it was interesting, it didn’t exactly match the description Hatsune had given it, nor did it apply to her stated purpose from yesterday. “I don’t understand,” Kanade admitted, looking at the journal’s cover in confusion.
“That’s probably because it’s not quite done,” Hatsune admitted with a sigh. “This is kind of embarrassing, but I forgot to put the first page back on. It explains everything, and to be honest, conversation in person isn’t my strong suit. I hate to ask, but could you go to my dorm and get it? I’d like to stay here a little longer.”
It was a ludicrous request and not one anyone besides Kanade would have complied with. She’d become so used to acquiescing to strange demands that one more fetch quest from Hatsune hardly fazed her. With a promise to be back quickly, Kanade power walked out of sight then jogged to the dorms. She was fortunate that they were close to the entrance to the forest. Nobody saw or heard Kanade as she made her way back to the dorm buildings and Hatsune’s dorm a few floors below hers. Entering the room that had been conspicuously left unlocked, Kanade was greeted with a perfectly normal-looking dorm, such that it didn’t even look like anyone lived there. The only out of place feature was a half-torn piece of paper that Kanade picked up carefully, presuming this to be her target.
Hey Kana-chan, sorry. I messed up. I figured as long as I don’t remember anything we could stay friends, even though you warned me. I even went so far as passing notes so you wouldn’t worry that we were getting too close at first. But it didn’t work. I want to stay with you, I really do. I wanted to fill this journal with everything I knew about you so you and I could use it to help you make a bunch of new friends and so you wouldn’t have to forget anything about yourself, but I suppose I ran out of time. When we met again that day, I realized that you might be trying to forget who you were so you wouldn’t hurt yourself, and I don’t want you to do that. I don’t want you to be alone, either, so here’s what you need to do:
The paper was torn off there, Hatsune’s request completely removed from the sheet. Kanade scanned the room for the missing part of the paper, but came up with nothing. There wasn’t much of a reason to search anyways. Hatsune had made her point perfectly clear. She’d been called out today so Hatsune could say goodbye. It was a completely expected outcome to a story Kanade had lived through dozens of times. Though it was good that Hatsune had worked through her amnesia, it of course meant that her time in this world had ended. Kanade’s hands crumpled the paper she was holding. This was how things were meant to be. She was the odd one who couldn’t leave this place. Maybe she really was more of an oddity than the NPCs, something worth being scared of. Maybe the others were right for avoiding her as she avoided them when possible. There were no bonus points for being special in the afterlife, after all. Anyone who could possibly thank her for what she’d done was long gone, leaving only those she’d never spoken to every time. Kanade found herself leaving and closing the dorm room behind her without thinking about it. If her suspicions were correct, all she had to do was confirm Hatsune’s disappearance on the student roster and call it a night. But she didn’t do that. Instead, Kanade started jogging, then full on sprinting back towards the forest.
Stars above Kanade twinkled mercilessly as she darted towards the woods. Hatsune was gone. She was running towards nothing. Hatsune had left without really saying goodbye, exactly as Kanade had wanted. They weren’t even technically friends. Friends knew things like each other’s favorite color, what they did for fun, their hobbies, their dreams. Even if Kanade knew those things, they were just points of data. They didn’t mean anything. They didn’t. Kanade believed this right up until she saw Hatsune leaning against a tree, a content expression on her face as she stared up at the stars. When she heard Kanade coming, she broke into a weak smile. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag,” she joked. “I was hoping I’d be gone before you got back, but I guess I got distracted looking at the sky. No telling if I’ll become someone who can appreciate it, you know?”
There were a myriad of things Kanade wanted to say. Instead of saying them, she felt a tear come to her eye. “Don’t go,” she begged. “Please.”
“Can’t do that,” Hatsune replied quietly. “I’ve been trying, honest. If it’s something you can fight, I guess I’m just not strong enough. But you shouldn’t give up, okay Kana-chan? Use the journal, make more friends, get hurt again, and remember what makes Kana-chan Kana-chan. I know it hurts. I was alone for most of my life too. After I got sick, friends and family came to visit occasionally, but almost all of them stopped at some point. Every day slowly started to become the same. It was basically the same as being dead. In my opinion, getting hurt is better than having to go through that hell day after day forever. So please, Kana-chan, don’t give up on helping people, because if you do…”
Hatsune trailed off for a moment. “Because if you do, then people like me might get stuck here forever. It’s like this in the real world too, you know? Constant goodbyes and hellos, and we just have to deal with it. But if you have that book, you won’t have to forget who you are again, or close yourself off from it all. You can be the special Kana-chan I got to know, that helps people no matter what, even at the expense of who she is.”
Kanade’s mind flashed back to meeting Hatsune, the attitude that other people had treated the girl with, as some sort of oddity like her. Had Kanade not happened to indulge Hatsune’s note-passing game, she might never have gotten her memory back. But Hatsune wasn’t like Kanade. Hatsune had a choice. No matter what Kanade did, she couldn’t stop the heart in her chest from beating, beating, beating. It was what made her special. Therefore, there was only one thing to do in this situation if she was Hatsune’s friend. “You’re right. I’m sorry for asking you to stay.”
Hatsune shook her head, pushing herself off from the tree to pat Kanade on the head. “That’s my line, but like reversed. I dragged you into this dumb game to help me out. And hey, it worked, but I had to hurt you to do it. If I have to obliterate, I want to do it into someone who doesn’t have to inconvenience people like that ever again. That’s what my brother probably would have wanted too. So I’m the one who’s sorry, Kana-chan.”
There was something Kanade was supposed to say in response to that. Instead, she found herself holding up Hatsune’s final note to her. The wording had been jumbled by the damage Kanade’s hands had done to the paper, but the note was still somewhat legible. “The page you left was torn.”
Hatsune smiled, her eyes already looking somewhere far away as she looked at the note. “Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I had something written there but I ended up tearing it up because I didn’t like it. Or maybe it was just a blank space and I didn’t want you to see I couldn’t think of anything. Maybe I’m just bad at communicating overall too, huh? Just make up whatever ending you want. I’m sure you know what someone like you needs to do in a situation like this, right Kana-chan?”
There was nothing Kanade could say to that request but nod, taking one of Hatsune’s hands in her own. Hatsune’s smile was brighter than the gleaming Christmas lights above her. “Thank you, Kana-chan. I’ll see you again soon, okay?” With that, Hatsune disappeared, a content smile on her face the last image Kanade received from her.
A small ball of light was all that remained of Hatsune, replacing the hand that Kanade had been holding. It was tiny, warm, and more soothing to look at than anything Kanade had ever seen before. As she reached out her other hand to grasp it, the light ball floated up into the air, joining the Christmas tree lights gathered in the air until it took its place in the sky with the other stars. Instead of the ball of light Kanade had Hatsune’s journal in her hand, the overexaggerated characters letting the reader know in no uncertain terms that everything there was to know about Kanade Tachibana was located inside. When the tears Kanade had been shedding dried up, she was left only with a view that somehow looked less spectacular than when she’d first borne witness to it. There was no way she’d be able to fulfill Hatsune’s request. She wasn’t strong enough to go through this again. It was only a matter of time before one of them broke her for good. Perhaps she was already broken. But that didn’t give her an excuse to stop doing her job as student council president. “Hana-chan… Is that what you meant by not forgetting who I am?” Only Kanade’s heartbeat answered her question, even the sounds of the forest drowned out by its insistent thumping.
“I see. Thank you for doing your best. I’ll… hold on to this for now.” She couldn’t just get rid of her friend’s hard work, even when the consequences of someone finding it were so potentially dangerous. “Thanks. For telling me not to give up.” Without another word, Kanade Tachibana added Hatsune days to her age and allowed the sound of her heartbeat to guide her steps back to the school. Until the person she was waiting for came along, she’d keep the notebook safe, no matter how many of her friends she would have to wait through.