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“Their jobs are done. They can leave now. You, however, still have unfinished work.”
“David…”
They’re standing in a complete white void.
Everyone is gone. They’ve all dissolved into specks of lights.
“You’re going back to the real world. Memories wiped. And so are the dead ones.”
They’ve gone home. Where they can continue their life. All the trauma and horrors they’ve gone through. Wiped. Gone.
Everyone’s gone, except for David. And obviously, except for Teruko.
David’s the last one to go.
He stares at his dissolving hand. Glowing dots of light like fireflies flying into the atmosphere. David has rarely lost his composure. He (somehow) does not panic or cry like everyone else. He lifts his eyes from his half-gone hand to look at her.
And smiles.
Her favorite smile. The softest smile she had ever seen. The softest smile in her world.
Teruko has only witnessed it once, during their weeks of working together. It shocked her, really. The fact someone like him was— is capable of making that smile. It made her happy. Truly happy.
This is only the second time, yet unlike the first, it hurts to look at.
“So that bitch was right, huh?” David chuckles.
Teruko wants to cry. She can’t.
“Honestly, I didn’t believe that fucker at first,” He shrugs, “but I guess I was wrong.”
Her ability to cry is on vacation somewhere far away. She can’t choke a sob out if she wants to.
And right now she really, really wants to cry.
Teruko keeps staring at him. Wide eyed. She opens her mouth, attempting to say something. Nothing comes out.
David notices, and walks towards her. That sweet smile still on his face. Since when were they standing so far from each other?
“It was surprisingly nice working with you.” He says, like it’s a casual conversation, “if I said that to myself from 2 weeks ago, he’d probably punch me.”
Now he’s standing directly in front of her. Close enough for her to tilt her head up just a bit to look at his face. That stupid face she hated so much back then. The face now glowing in the already bright void they’re in.
“You know,” His voice so gentle it makes her sick, “I’d love to remember that time for the rest of my life if I could.”
David leans down, and whispers in her ear five words. The words she was so scared to hear. The words she would never think of saying to anyone. The words she never knew she needed to hear so badly.
“I love you, Teruko Tawaki.”
Thank you for not dying unlike everyone else I’ve truly cared about.
Then he’s gone.
Teruko has always been unlucky.
It’s her luck. Her fate. Her god awful, painful, fate. No one will stay with her forever.
It’s also her luck that she ended up the only one who still remembers the killing game. Who still has those dead body discoveries and executions haunting her nightmares. Who still remembers Xander, Eden, Min… and especially, David. And he’s not even dead.
How is she haunted by someone who’s still alive?
She remembered lying in her bed, thinking about how she’s actually began to trust fucking David of all people, praying: “Please don’t betray me, David.”
He didn’t. David didn’t stab her or try to frame her, he didn’t die or revealed himself to be the mastermind. David did not betray her in any way like that. He simply just left. Disappeared. Dissolved into the unsettling whiteness around her.
Out of everyone she truly trusted. Truly wanted to spend her daily life with. David was the only one who loved her that didn’t do anything to betray her trust, besides her brother, who she barely remembers at all.
She sees him almost everywhere these days. Billboards, adverts, TV shows... those kinds of stuff. Of course she does. He’s famous, after all.
Teruko has never paid attention to media of any kind before. But now she would always looking for them, from any available screen in the streets to constantly stalking the TEDtalk channel. All in hope of seeing him. To fill the void in her heart. And that void will never be filled.
Because that David is a phony. That’s the David who’s still hiding his depression, who’s constantly acting. That’s the David who sees himself as a heartless manipulative villain.
The David whose smile isn’t his.
She knows. She can tell he’s faking, that he’s not himself. He’s good at it, she’ll admit, but she knows. She always has since the start. She was the first person to see his mask slip, after all.
Something else she also knows, is that Teruko will never see David’s real smile ever again.
In the rain with nothing but a jacket. Teruko stares at David’s face through the blinding billboard screens. He smiles, signing papers, answering questions.
David Chiem. The Ultimate Inspirational Speaker. The love of her life. One who holds her entire soul. The luckiest thing that has ever happened to her.
And one of the many things that she will never have.
Thank you for not betraying me just because I trusted you.
“Terry? Earth to Terry!”
Teruko snaps back to reality. Who is Terry? Oh right, the student whose card she stole from is Terry.
She looks at the 3 girls who are… her friends? She guesses. They just came up to her on her first day and started conversing with her.
“Uh— yeah! I agree.” Teruko obviously not was not paying attention at all.
The middle girl, brunette, pouts at her. “We were asking who your celebrity crush was! What celebrity is named ‘I agree’?”
Oh. Right.
She opens her mouth to speak, but the blondie beat her to it. “What makes you think she even has one? I love Terry, really, but she doesn’t even know any celebrity except for Mariabella Rosales—“
“I like… David Chiem? I think?”
The three stares at her. In silence.
“You actually know more than one celebrity?” The blonde one speaks again in astonishment.
God, do they really think that lowly of me? Teruko sighs.
“No, scratch that. You know David Chiem? I never thought of you to be the type to enjoy TEDtalks.” Says the third girl whose hair… is her hair black or dark-blue?
“Well, you thought wrong.” Teruko shrugs.
The brunette starts talking again. “To be honest I get it.” She beams, “He’s a good boy, nice and sweet, knows how to use words, has nice a voice and face.” The three girls giggle, Teruko tries to giggle too.
She turns to her. “That’s why you like him, right Terry?”
Well, no. David is far from all that (actually, the voice and face part isn’t wrong). She loves— “crushes” him because he went through that hell hole killing game with her. Was her investigation partner throughout the trials. He didn’t betray her. He loved her back.
Teruko nods and forces a smile. The same forced smile that David puts on everyday.
“Yeah, exactly.”