Archive of Our Own ^beta

An empty pang resounded in Decim’s chest.

Ah.

She was... leaving him.

“Well, I’ll be going now.” Chiyuki smiled at him wistfully.

Wait no.

“Don’t forget to smile!”

Please don’t go.

“Bye bye.” She gave a small, hesitant wave.

However, he could already feel her slip through his fingers, like sand in an hourglass.

She stepped into the elevator.

Please…

Don’t leave me.

Decim’s face softened.

His eyes silently observed the gentleness of her face, absorbing everything about her. One last time.

This was the last time he was going to see her, wasn’t it.

To see her smile.

To hear her laugh.

To listen to her voice.

To take in her scent.

To know her story.

The tips of his mouth upturned by the slightest motion, giving her a genuine bittersweet smile.

It was better this way.

For both of them to forget all of this.

Whatever this was.

As the elevator doors slid closed, tears slid down Chiyuki’s cheeks.

She gave him that brilliant smile one last time, and the doors slid shut with a definitive bang.

With a whoosh and a glow of white light, she was gone.

She had left him behind.

Decim reached up to touch the corner of his lips, confused.

...What is this?

He was left with this deep inconsolable pain in his chest that he couldn’t describe. It was hollow and heavy at the same time. It sat on his chest, like a weight that grew heavier and heavier by the minute.

Was this... sadness?

Then why... was he smiling?

When humans were sad, they cried. It was as simple as that. And yet…

His hand fell away from his face.

He turned away from the elevator doors and Decim continued on as he always had.

Decim didn’t want to forget her. It was as simple as that.

He didn’t want to forget Chiyuki. Not her smile, not her laughter, nor her pain, nor her scent, or her voice, or her name.

He wanted to carry on with these memories of her, even though just thinking about her made his heart ache.

However, he knew.

He would never be allowed to keep them.

All of his memories of her laughing for him, screaming at him, crying with him, would vanish at just the snap of the fingers.

All to make room for the new visitors that came through the afterlife; to be judged for their sins.

That’s just how arbiters worked, and how they would always be.

That’s how they should be.

The chasm in his chest widened, and his hand squeezed the fabric of his shirt right over where his heart would’ve been, had he been human.

He grimaced.

Thinking of her made him... sad. Yes. That’s what the humans called it, he thought.

Yes. That was it.

It made him sad. She made him sad.

However, when he thought of her… Chiyuki’s voice, her touch, and her laugh... a pleasant feeling bloomed in his chest. It was warm... and it was safe and comforting...

Was this feeling also causing him the sickening pain in his stomach?

It puzzled him.

He made a doll of her — a mannequin — like all the others that passed through his bar.

They were everywhere — a doll of a pianist sat quietly on the piano bench, fingers poised perfectly above the keys, the woman with an umbrella, a man with a suit, and many others.

They sat in the nosebleeds, mostly, dead and still. Ready to be reanimated with just a swish of his strings, like puppets.

He didn’t remember any of their names, any of their stories, any of their pain or voices or smiles.

And soon, like just like the rest of them, Decim would forget her too.

Again, he was overwhelmed with a wash of sadness.

He carefully assembled the body of the mannequin, connecting the feet to the ankles to the shins, the shins to the knees to the thighs, the legs to the torso.

It all whizzed together neatly with his strings.

Before he could forget, he placed every detail he could remember about her onto the doll.

Long black hair, with a single lock of white.

Cherry-colored lipstick.

Black heels.

Shorts.

A black crop top.

A necklace with a jeweled purple pendant.

He pushed in all his entire heart and soul into weaving the mannequin together. All his sadness, and all his passion, and all of these confusing blooming wonderful feelings.

There was a pause.

Then he opened his eyes.

It looked exactly like her, all of the same features, the same height, the same clothing, and yet…

It wasn’t her.

It was too still.

Chiyuki was full of life. Full of emotions that he couldn’t understand. Full of emotions that he couldn’t never even begin to recreate. Full of laughter and anger and sadness and joy.

This doll… It sat obediently in its place, with this neutral expression gracing its face.

It was too quiet, too still, too…

Dead.

A mere replica.

His lips tilted in a slight frown.

He took it, carrying it with the flick of his strings, carefully placing it in his arms, like a bride.

Its joints clicked and clacked in his arms as he carried it out of the back room.

It hung limply from his gentle caress.

She was special.

Chiyuki taught him how to laugh and how to shed tears.

Things that he couldn’t even begin to understand before.

Seeing her like this just felt so…

Wrong.

Yes, that was the word.

Wrong.

He carefully placed the mannequin of Chiyuki down next to him on the inner side of the bar counter, on a chair where she often stood to the side.

By his side.

It settled down in the chair with a clack.

At least... this was proof that she existed.

That she lived and loved and cried and laughed, even if it was just a poor imitation of the woman that taught him and blessed him with all these strange and wonderful things.

Even if his memories got wiped, at least he would have that.

He grasped at his chest again.

Why?

Why did this hurt so much?

There was no resistance when the mannequin hung limply from Decim’s arms. There was no resistance when Decim brought it through the halls to the ice rink, and there was no resistance as Decim places a skate on each foot, its two legs clacking together purposelessly.

After a moment, he carefully fastened the laces of its skates together, the rough texture of the string slightly biting into his fingers.

’You see,’ Chiyuki’s voice softly hummed through his thoughts as the ghost of her touch began to guide his fingers. ‘The rabbit goes under the log, through the loop, and into the burrow it goes.’

He tightened the knot.

A heavy sensation sat in his chest at the memory.

He stood back.

His strings whizzed the doll into the middle of the rink, gently arranging it into a starting position, an arm up, toe pointing to the side, where it stilled.

Decim gazed over to the stage on the other side of the ice, where a doll was stiffly perched before a grand, black piano. And, with a wave of his hand, the pianist jerked to life. Its wrists raised from its lap, fingertips clicking lightly as it settled against the keys.

There was a brief moment of silence, before a melancholy melody began to stir the air.

It haunted him, as the music began to reverberate throughout the giant space and into his very bones.

Decim held out his hands as his strings guided it, every graceful axel and toe-loop committed to memory.

As it twirled, Decim could almost ignore that its movements were too mechanical, each raise of its arm too perfect, each leap too calculated. As it flew across the ice and the music swelled, Decim could almost fool himself into thinking that Chiyuki was alive once again. Right by his side.

However, once the song died, the illusion did too — the doll once again hanging lifelessly from its strings as silence echoed throughout the dimly lit darkness.

He numbly stared at it hanging on its strings for what felt like an hour, his chest aching with such a strange feeling. With stiff legs and a heavy feeling in his heart, he stepped forward onto the ice. Decim carefully made his way to the middle of the rink, slippery ice quietly crackling under his feet. His strings whizzed ever so softly as they brought the puppet to meet him in the middle. He stood there for a while as his strings quickly set to work, unfastening the skates and whisking them off to the side. He silently searched the blank features of its face before taking it into his arms, its joints clicking together ever so gently.

It felt so cold underneath his hands.

He weaved throughout the halls, taking it back to its place behind the counter, before setting it down carefully. Decim stared at it again, an indecipherable emotion rising in his chest as he tenderly brushed its bangs to the side.

The doll was the only memoir of Chiyuki that he had left. It was, and will always be precious to him.

Even if it was a poor imitation.

Decim was ready.

To get his memories of her erased.

Her laughter. Her pain. All of it.

He was ready to let go now.

Thoroughly wiped clean, like a brand-new slate, ready to move on to the new visitors that were about to pass through.

“Sending memories now...” An emotionless, robotic voice announced from the intel bureau.

His eyes whizzed and rolled to see the back of his head.

Goodbye.

Chiyuki…

Within a single delightful sound, he couldn’t remember anything, yet something left a hole in his heart.

He was Decim.

An arbiter of the dead, a judge for souls.

His favorite food was roast beef sandwiches, and he liked watching jellyfish.

He respected human souls who had led a fulfilling life.

His hobby was to construct dolls of the dead. A memoir of their existences.

Yet there was something missing.

Something that he couldn’t put a finger on.

Something that made his heart ache.

A man and a woman, terrified, steadily approached the bar.

“Hello.”

His face softened.

Don’t forget to smile.

He smiled, but he wasn’t sure why.

A dull pain in his chest ached.

“Welcome to Quindecim.”

“Hey.” Ginti’s face rumpled with annoyance, “You seem awfully different.”

“I do?” Decim mused inexpressively.

Ginti took another huge swig of his memento mori and abruptly slammed his glass on the counter with a bang.

“Mm... I’d be careful with those,” Decim absentmindedly wiped another wine glass dry with a rag. “They break rather easily.”

“Right. It’s not like you have fucking magic to, like, magically fix it or somethin’.” Ginti scoffed.

“Of course I do,” Decim placed it onto the table top with a tactful clink, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“See? The sarcasm is new, too.” Ginti sighed exasperatedly.

“How so?” Decim shook the mixer, “Please. Enlighten me.”

Ginti watched as Decim poured the clear blue liquid into the slim glass, “I dunno, man. It’s just somethin’ about…” he waved a hand, “the way you move. The way you talk. Maybe it’s just your fuckin… uh… face or somethin’.”

He squinted at Decim’s face, his eyes narrowing, “Suspicious.”

“How suspicious.” Decim echoed. He tried hard to suppress his mouth from quirking from seeing Ginti’s face flash with irritation.

Decim slid the glass in Ginti’s direction, “Would you like another?”

Ginti grabbed the glass, looking away, “Y’know, you really piss me off sometimes.”

“Mm…” Decim watched as Ginti took a quick sip from his glass, “It is just my intention to be a good host.”

“Sure.” Ginti drawled in response, obvious disbelief in his voice. His eyes drifted around the large space before his attention caught on the doll tucked behind the edge of the counter. “Whoa. What the hell is that?”

He shifted in his stool to get a better look.

 “I know you like making those creepy-ass things, but why’s it so fucking close?”

Ginti was right. The rest of the mannequins were tucked away in the rafters, far away from where the visitors could see them, looming over them like oppressive spectators.

Yet this one...

It was sitting on the side, like an assistant. Its hands neatly were folded in its lap, positioned stiffly in its chair, a few feet away.

Looking at it sent a deep painful pang through Decim’s heart, yet he couldn’t remember why.

All on its own, his hand subconsciously reached up to touch his heart.

“You gotta find a new hobby. Maybe knitting or embroidery or some shit.” Ginti scoffed, propping up his chin on his hand, “This one’s sickening.”

He waved his free hand dismissively in the direction of the other spectator mannequins, “At least put that one over there like the others. Seeing one so close makes me wanta puke.”

“No.” Decim heard himself firmly say, “She’s special.”

Ginti lifted a brow.

“Oh, did I hit a nerve?” He held his hands up in mock surrender, “Sure sure. It’s your place. Whatever you say boss man.”

Why did he say that?

That she was... special? To him?

He looked at the doll.

He couldn’t even remember who that was.

The longer he gazed at the doll, the more a single question began to ring clear in his mind.

Who are you?

Decim opened the little knee-high fridge underneath the bar counter and crouched down to peer into it.

Did he need to restock for groceries?

The little white light at the back of the small fridge blinked on. It hummed and buzzed quietly.

Ah, yes, he did.

The tiny refrigerator had a significant lack of food stacked on its shelves.

In fact, it was empty.

Except for a few things.

Some bread... lettuce... a single tomato… mozzarella cheese... and a few slices of opened roast beef.

He didn’t recall ever opening the roast beef, but then again, he couldn’t recall a lot of things.

Almost out of habit, Decim brought out the ingredients up onto the counter.

He pulled out two plates and began assembling the sandwich.

He parted the remainder of the four slices of bread and began organizing them on the plates, side by side.

Decim took the lettuce and tomatoes and delicately placed them on one side of each of the sandwiches.

He peeled apart the thin pieces of roast beef, gently, one slice each on the other side, and layered the cheese on top of it.

He always liked the cheese in the middle of the sandwich, but for some reason, something was telling him to put the cheese underneath the roast beef slice for the other.

He closed the sandwiches, the bread crumbling under his fingers.

Decim pulled one of the plates towards himself, and pushed the other towards the empty bar stool in front of him.

Why did he make another one?

For some reason, he always made two sandwiches.

It was almost out of habit, but he didn’t know why he always made an extra with the meat in the middle.

Who was it for?

He stared at the empty barstool in front of him, as he chewed his cold crumby sandwich. It was too dry in his mouth.

How strange.

Again, he was filled with this lonely feeling in his chest that was all too familiar to him now.

For some reason, nobody really sat at that barstool in front of him. Visitors naturally avoided the seat, like it was reserved for someone else. Even Ginti, who often visited his bar for some reason, subconsciously avoided it.

There was nothing really special about the barstool.

It looked like all the others that were standing next to it.

He began to notice that nobody was sitting in it when he saw that, unlike all the other stools, this one was gathering dust. After that, he began to take note if somebody ever sat in that particular one, in front of where he naturally stood.

Nobody sat. They always sat on the end, or the one right next to it, but never that one.

It was strange.

Looking at it made his chest feel like there was something missing inside of him.

A lonely gap that he could never fill.

Something that he had lost that he would never find again.

Decim’s fingers brushed against his chest, almost against his will.

He frowned.

The elevators hummed, and with a quiet whoosh, the visitors were gone.

He was left alone, again, all by himself.

He always hated this part.

It bothered him.

It was too quiet, always leaving him trapped in his own thoughts until the next visitors came.

Most of the time, he’d wait painfully behind the bar counter, staring at the entrance, waiting.

He waited and waited and waited.

And waited…

And waited…

…and… waited…

He pressed his fingers to his temples.

Maybe walking around would help soothe his mind.

It was always a good distraction… Most of the time.

He walked out from the behind the bar, and felt something smooth and silky brush lightly against his fingers.

He turned his head, seeing that his fingers were subconsciously touching the doll’s hair.

The familiarness of it made the oh-so intimate emptiness of his heart gnaw at his stomach.

He paused briefly, staring at it, before he withdrew his fingers and continued walking.

He wandered around the huge space.

Most of the furniture took on a cold hue because of the complexly patterned blue, purple, indigo stained-glass ceiling soaring overhead, cold light shining down on the hall below.

He weaved slowly around the couches, the tables, over the rugs and hard tile floors, over the bridge and past the bamboo, the sounds of water trickling dancing in his ears.

He headed into the back rooms, stopping by the storage area where he kept all of his mannequins, waiting to be assembled.

He paused, his hand resting on the door frame to the storage room.

Wait.

Decim swept his eyes to the left, his head following.

Had that always been there?

Of course not. The halls and structures of Quindecim were always shifting and changing.

It wasn’t strange at all for random games, dart boards, bowling alleys, even ice skating rinks to appear in the blink of an eye.

Yet it caught him off guard to see another hallway past the mannequins’ storage room.

He headed down the short passageway and it split into a t, leading to another bathroom, and a single door.

The door was elegant, with a graceful handle, and elaborate carvings patterned into its worn surface. He settled his hand onto its knob, curious, and turned.

It swung open without a sound.

A vacant bedroom, lit by small wax candles around the room, casting a soft, orangish glow.

Most of it was purple. A bed with lilac sheets, a magenta rug, and light purple wallpaper, and based on a quick sweep of the area, it hadn’t been used for quite a while, but it had been used at one point.

It was strange.

He didn’t remember this room.

There was a low two-level bookshelf by the sculpted bed.

He sat down on it to get a better look. The bed creaked and sank under his weight.

Most of its thick, archaic books were about alcohol and the various techniques that were used for the brewing of different drinks and wine.

He flipped through their yellowed pages, skimming, dust floating from the books.

Decim vaguely felt that he had read all of these before somewhere. He recognized the wording and the illustrations from somewhere, but he couldn’t quite place his finger on it.

He placed them on top of the shelf beside them when he was done flipping through them.

They landed on the surface with a soft thump.

Then his fingers rested on one that was different from the rest.

It was thin, and plastic hardcover instead of leather, squeezed in there uncomfortably, like it was forced into there. It barely fit, and stuck out a little bit more than the rest.

He pulled it out.

Chavvot.

A story book.

He sat down on the lilac sheets of the bed, the mattress dipping and creaking under his weight.

He flipped through its pages, observed its childish drawings, and began to read.

Jimmy’s family just moved into a new home.

Jimmy was delighted to be surrounded by the adorable furniture and lots of new toys.

Outside, it was snowing. Just then Jimmy spotted a girl with a puppy dashing around on the ice.

He immediately took a great liking to this girl.

That’s because she was smiling in the most charming way.

Decim flipped the page and continued.

In the story, the little boy ran over to the girl in the snow but fell into a shallow pit by accident.

Intrigued, Decim kept reading.

But then, the girl reached down her hand from the top of the hole.

When Jimmy saw her cute smile, he soon forgot all about the pain.

Jimmy—

Decim snapped the book shut.

For some reason reading it filled him with a sense of nostalgia, and another feeling washed over him.

He couldn’t quite describe it.

It made him feel warm and fuzzy on the inside, but it also made his chest hurt.

He stared at the story book, its shiny plastic cover basking in an incandescent glow.

For some reason, every single word he read shot an arrow through his heart.

The story felt so familiar to him, despite never having read it before.

…

Why?

He took a moment to breathe.

Maybe he would finish reading it later.

Decim stood up and gently placed the mysterious story book back in its place where it belonged.

He continued as he always did.

However, something was… missing.

He wasn’t sure what, but it itched at the back of his head, tore at his heartstrings, made his body feel like a rock.

It was painful.

Around every corner, he expected to see something, no, someone, but…

They just weren’t there.

Not at the barstool in front of where he always stood.

Not in that mysterious vacant bedroom.

Not at his side.

Everywhere his intuition was itching at him, bothering him. Someone should be there.

Yet there was nothing.

It was just... empty.

He felt empty.

He longed for this something.

Yet he didn’t know what this something was.

The elevator doors shut, and with a whoosh of light the visitors were gone.

He couldn’t count how many times he’d done this before. It was a familiar process to him: Wait for the visitors, have them play the game, judge them for their sins, and send them to either the void or reincarnation.

It sounded simple enough.

It used to be so simple.

He didn’t know what, but at some point, it changed.

No.

He changed.

Something in him shifted.

Before, somebody was clearly in the wrong, and the other was in the right. It was clean cut. He was precise. He was a good arbiter.

Now…

Now, he wasn’t so sure.

Sometimes one was in the wrong, and the other was even worse.

Sometimes neither person was in the wrong, and he had to pick which one had to be sent to hell when they didn’t deserve it, while the other got reincarnated when they didn’t really deserve it either.

Along some point down the line, his eyes were opened to empathy. He could feel their pain, their sorrows, their love and their joy.

All of the sudden he could understand.

When the visitors left, it was just so... lonely.

In some twisted way, he enjoyed their company, even though they were pushed through so much suffering.

Maybe it was because he wasn’t so alone in his thoughts.

Decim trailed his fingers absentmindedly along the bar’s counter, his footsteps echoing in the large expanse.

He heard the ghost of cheerful laughter behind him, almost like it was taunting him.

He spun around, slowly, looking over his shoulder.

There was nothing.

Was he imagining things?

There should be someone there.

He breathed in slowly through his nose, before exhaling through his mouth.

Was the laughter even real? It might’ve been real at some point, but there was barely just a trace left now.

Sometimes he could almost feel the ghost of someone’s touch lightly graze a gentle kiss against his skin.

His heart ached.

He stood dutifully behind the counter in his place, letting the laughter play out in his head.

Waiting for the next visitors to pass through.

The laughter was just in his head.

It was all just in his head.

Everything was just in his head.

He was left alone, in that huge lonely expanse.

He felt so small, surrounded by happy giggling, and he suffered in silence.

Decim felt himself crouch down.

He found himself kneeling before the doll, inexplicably drawn to it.

His hands covered the mannequin’s, folded neatly in its lap, yet he wasn’t sure why.

Its hands were so small compared to his…

It wasn’t looking at him. It saw nothing.

Instead its eyes stared straight ahead into nothingness, sitting stiffly in its place.

It couldn’t feel him.

It couldn’t feel the warmth of his hands on its.

It couldn’t feel the inconsolable pain erupting in his chest or the ache of loneliness that he was threatening to drown in.

It couldn’t feel him.

So why… why was he seeking comfort from this mannequin?

She was special.

His thumbs subconsciously rubbed over the mannequin’s hands. It was too cold and smooth and unnatural.

He brought his hand up to its face, stroking its cheek ever so gently with his thumb, tucking its long black hair behind its ear.

However, it just stared straight ahead with a neutral expression. It couldn’t even see him.

Why was he so attached to this doll?

It must’ve been a person at some point.

It was beautiful and impersonal, like a statue, but seeing it like that just felt so.. wrong.

A bubble rose through his throat.

It was too still… Too…

Dead.

Decim took its cold metal hands and pressed them to his forehead, and tears began to slip down his cheeks.

I’m so sorry.

He squeezed his eyes shut, allowing his tears to drip silently onto the floor, and gently sobbed into them, unbearable inaudible screams clawing at his vocal cords.

I’m so sorry.

Why was he... apologizing?

I’m so sorry.

He let go of all of his suffering that he didn’t know that was building up in chest. All of his anger. All of his pain. All of his sadness.

I’m so sorry.

I’m so sorry.

He sobbed into its freezing metallic hands, yet it sat there. It didn’t understand.

Not his pain.

Not his anguish.

Not his sorrow.

Yet he didn’t understand why.

Why was he crying?

Why was he in so much pain?

…

Who are you?