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I look down, ankles warmed by the covers. My fingers bend, fingertips pushing at my palms. My thumbs move back and forth. I can feel my bones get pulled by my own tendons, I can feel the edges of my eyelids meet when I blink. I can feel Sayori’s hand land graciously on my shoulder through the fabric of my blazer.
Soon it’s her face, nose poking at my collarbone. It’s warm; warm, not just in terms of heat, but the way it feels in the crevices of my stomach and the corners of my heart. It’s hard to describe. Meekly, I let my head tilt to the side and our heads of hair, mine longer than hers, meet with a prickly feeling in my scalp.
“You haven’t said anything for a bit,” Sayori whispers, her voice like a soft caress to my very eardrums. “Are you okay?”
I point my eyes to the corner of my vision, where I can just barely see smidges of Sayori’s messy hair, thin strings of peachy pink that look new to me.
“Sorry,” I feel the air pass my trachea and my lips. “I’m used to… zoning out like that. It’s like time doesn’t pass when I do.”
I can just barely hear Sayori mumble comfortably under her breath. But time does pass, now. It has passed. From behind the window I watch the horizon take the sun into its arms, about a third of it concealed.
“How do you feel?” Sayori asks. I feel her cheek grow warmer on my shoulder. I feel her body tilt to scoot closer to me. I feel her hand slide carefully onto mine and perfectly fit its fingers between my own.
“I feel… you. Does that make sense?” I have no one else to ask.
Sayori mumbles in thought. “I think. Do I feel nice?” There’s a sort of uncertainty to her tone, as if she’s genuinely in doubt, or so I deduce. I answer simply.
“Yeah.” Another little breathy noise comes out of her. Fingers tighten around my hand. It feels so right, so familiar, but it’s all new. Freeze frames flash in my head, what I have every right to assume are memories, but they simply don’t feel the part. They look like pictures, not part of my mind, as if someone else dropped them there, and not by accident.
“Sayori,” my lips stay parted as I figure out what to say, slightly burdened by the pressure of time. “Do I know you?”
She looks at me, or so I imagine - it would explain the shifting of her face against me. “What do you mean?” Concern, worry, something like that, is what I think she feels, and that has me feeling a twinge of guilt.
“I…” I have to pick my words carefully, but can I afford to waste seconds when I’ve spent – I don’t know how long I don’t know how long I don’t – without truly spending time with her? My breath hitches and it’s like the ventricles in my heart are tightening.
“I’m… I’m sorry, I did it again. I’m so sorry–”
Suddenly, Sayori unlatches from my form, uncomfortable air (emptiness, almost?) covering me head to toe. For a split second she remains kneeled in front of me; another split second and she dives onto my sternum and snakes two arms around my back, fingertips raking slowly and gently all around.
“It’s okay. I love you. I love you. Okay?”
My cheeks feel warmer and the corners of my eyes feel hotter. I look down at Sayori, at the freckles on her face and the occasional mark here and there, at the depth of her irises, and it doesn’t take long until those features are blurred, no matter how much I’d like to keep looking at them for the sake of solace.
My jaw shivers, my lips waver. “It’s… So much… So much wasted.” I manage, breathing unevenly, a tight feeling in my throat preceded by a cold trailing on both my cheeks. “I could have spent so long… so long with you, Sayori. I could have– you could have known me for so much longer, w-we…”
I feel myself shake with desperation; this feeling, it’s sapping, my control is taken away. I can’t feel my voice anymore, and that spreads the horrid sensation down to every single corner of my frail body. I become numb. I tilt weakly, falling down onto Sayori’s body, and she seems all too eager to receive me.
The noises that come out of me, the way my arms feel too stiff and too fragile at the same time, the way my heart tightens like it’ll crumple in on itself. I’m collapsing, like the pillars of an ancient structure, crashing down. Yet here comes Sayori’s voice again, my one source of solace besides her arms that feel like they’re ready to catch my crumbling remains.
“Love– Love, listen to me.” A hand trails up to the back of my head, nestling itself through my locks, fingernails meeting my scalp. “I know I love you. I do. And I don’t know why.”
She seems to take a break to swallow a painful tear - I too know the sensation. “I guess it’s… just how feelings work, right? They happen, you can’t control them. Maybe that’s what makes them… feelings.”
I exhale. “I want… control. I need control. I’ve not had it my entire… life?” Is it okay to call it life? Was it mine?
“You have it. Now you do.” She breathes, and I can feel remorse adding onto the pile of sensations trampling me as I feel a foreign tear dribble onto my skin. “You have… the power to make your future– our future… your own.
I slowly lift myself from her shoulder, eyes hot, my body recovering from its collapse.
“Maybe those old memories aren’t yours, but…” She stammers. “You’ll make new ones. With me. With us. Your friends will be yours, your… your poems will be yours, your walks in the park or visit to our houses will be yours…”
Sayori stares deep into my eyes, ignoring the tears trickling beneath them. “And I’ll be yours too. And… if you don’t have memories, I’ll happily share mine with you.”
I freeze, stuck looking into her eyes. If I look away, the moment will pass, and I’ll go back to feeling like a marionette, limp on Sayori’s bed until someone else pulls the strings and puppeteers my every step.
No. This is warm. This is true. This is… real.
“Will it…” I sniffle. “Will it be this way forever? Do we have forever?”
Sayori mumbles in affirmation, nodding once. “I promise.” She whispers, suddenly close to my lips.
I breathe out, relieved, and it causes Sayori to hitch a breath and part her lips. She looks at me, looks at my mouth, and her eyebrows raise in inquiry. I wait. She nods. Slowly, I descend.
Her lips feel soft, hot, smooth. They send shocks down my body and I feel numb again; yet I cherish it. I let my body become frail, and Sayori seems to sense this fragility herself, pushing me back-first to the mattress with little effort.
Sayori’s palms dig deep into the bed, and as she raises herself from my lips, she finds my hands again and locks our fingers in place like puzzle pieces.
“Mm, is it too much to ask for a name to murmur?” Sayori chuckles, cheeks flared.
A name. My name, not the old one, the one which was never mine and that I can’t seem to remember. I look to the side, genuinely seeking an answer. “I don’t… know.”
She softens up, both her expression and her shoulders. “Maybe we should hear what the girls have to say.”
“Maybe.” I mutter. The feeling of uncertainty starts to creep up on me again.
“We’ll figure it out, Love.” Sayori smiles, and the feeling goes away. “Hey, that has a nice ring to it.”
I chuckle. Love . It fits, doesn’t it? How corny. Maybe I can use that as a springboard for when I see my friends again. My friends.
But… Sayori looks at me longingly, and her face is such a mess, and I have to make up for the tears I ripped from her. Maybe she owes the same to me, a distant voice in my head suggests.
Shakily, I wrap two arms around the small of her back, drag her down with me, and let both of us tumble onto our sides. A hand finds itself on my cheek, thumb rubbing tenderly, with little space to hold us back.
Sayori’s gently caressing my skin, looking at me with sincerity, with yearning, with passion, her hair glinting under the almost non-existent light from outside. I shut my eyes. The image burns itself deep into the darkest corners of my mind, where it lights a torch that will light the way for my new memories.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “This is a good start.”