Archive of Our Own

[Which message would you like to play?]

VOICE MESSAGE
Date & Time: 12/24/50, 7:12 PM, Year 1
Sender: Unknown
Duration: 1:39
Message: […Hi, Nayuki. I know you don’t want to hear from me anymore, so I sent this message to one of your older numbers instead. Remember? This was the number you used to use for Mahorova. After we…or rather…I sold it off, you swore to leave this number behind. I figured you would never touch it again. So…here I am.

Nayuki, this is the first Christmas I’ve spent abroad…alone. The country I’m currently at has a much colder climate than that of JPN, so the evenings are long and dark, and the wind bites more than I expected. Despite knowing better, I keep finding myself thinking about calling you, but then I’d remember that you won’t pick up. That you would never answer. Knowing you, you probably already have me blocked everywhere, anyway… Besides, I don’t… I don’t want to bother you anymore.

Still, I hope you’ll allow me even just the slightest liberty of talking to you here…one-sidedly. That’s enough for me. It should be enough for me. Just being able to linger in the memory of you…is enough.

…It’s Christmas eve, Nayuki. I hope you are celebrating warmly with our parents over there. I’ll send them a short video greeting later to reassure them that I’m well. You can…you can choose to look at the video, too. If you want.

But I know you won’t.]

VOICE MESSAGE
Date & Time: 12/25/50, 8:03 PM, Year 1
Sender: Unknown
Duration: 1:51
Message: [Hello…it’s me again. Merry Christmas, Nayuki! The streets here are quiet tonight, snow piling up on the sidewalks, with lights flickering among the windows. As I’ve said in my previous message, it really is cold enough to make you think twice about stepping outside… But, well, I am outside regardless. I have nothing better to do, you see. I don’t really have much of an itinerary as of now; maybe I should make my schedule more packed with exciting things soon.

Inevitably, and as evidenced by how I am sending you a message again, I keep thinking about past Christmases…when things were simpler. You and I—running around as kids, arguing over who would give away the bigger slice of cake to the other, laughing together… Haha. I wonder if you even remember those moments, or if they’ve been swallowed up by everything that came after. I can’t blame you if they were. The only one who seems to hold onto the past is me…

But, really, Nayuki, what else can I cling to? I have no future, after all.

…I can almost hear you now, scolding me for not wearing enough layers… It makes me smile a little… Ah, I regret not keeping enough video and audio files of you. What if I forget your voice someday…? That seems impossible, though. There’s no way that would happen, right?

We…we won’t be like this for a much longer time…right? Maybe we’ll make amends soon.

Or maybe…maybe I’ll die before that even happens…]

VOICE MESSAGE
Date & Time: 12/24/51, 9:15 PM, Year 2
Sender: Unknown
Duration: 0:43
Message: [I didn’t think I was capable of it, but I was actually able to last a year of…not trying to contact you. Not that I had the means to… Anyway, it’s Christmas eve again, Nayuki. Are you all bundled up there at home with mom and dad? Or have you begun to live by yourself by now? I recall hearing news about you dabbling into the investment sphere immediately after graduation. I’m so proud of you—I know more than anyone that you will find success wherever you might go! Why, every time your name comes up here overseas, I always make sure to tell them you’re my little brother!

You’re my…you’re my pride and joy… Nayuki.]

VOICE MESSAGE
Date & Time: 12/25/51, 9:48 PM, Year 2
Sender: Unknown
Duration: 1:49
Message: […Merry Christmas, Nayuki! My message yesterday got caught short… I couldn’t help but tear up a bit, you see, and I didn’t want to trouble you. Haha. Funny, right? I had no qualms over burdening you back then, and yet I make attempts to be considerate now without your knowing.

Anyway, allow me to share a small anecdote about the holiday season here in the new area I’m staying at. They set up this open-air market near the river every December. Wooden stalls…strings of lights sagging under the snow, vendors shouting in a language I still trip over… I went yesterday evening shortly after my last message to you, because an acquaintance noticed me in my lonesome and invited me out, as thanks for the advice I gave him the other day. I guess you could say he was a business partner of sorts?

I wound up buying a small ornament shaped like a star. It reminds me of you. Of course, I have no tree to hang it on, so it’s sitting on my desk now, next to a stack of books I haven’t finished yet… I’ve been reading more of Dostoyevsky lately—this one short story he has called The Dream of a Ridiculous Man has ensnared me, in particular. Personally, I believe it has themes reminiscent of science fiction, too, and maybe that’s why it caught my eye more than his other well-known works.

As for the notion of Christmas itself, I tell myself I’ll decorate properly next year. I tell myself a lot of things like that…but at the same time, I wonder what would be the point in doing so. I don’t plan to stay here forever.

…I hope you have a better Christmas there. Goodbye.]

VOICE MESSAGE
Date & Time: 12/24/52, 7:45 PM, Year 3
Sender: Unknown
Duration: 0:14
Message: […Signal…choppy…—m at…mountainous…—rea… Looking for…—yeti!]

VOICE MESSAGE
Date & Time: 12/25/52, 11:22 PM, Year 3
Sender: Unknown
Duration: 0:20
Message: […attery…low…what…am…I…doing? —M—merry Christ—mas…Nayu—ki—…I lo…]

VOICE MESSAGE
Date & Time: 12/24/53, 8:58 PM, Year 4
Sender: Unknown
Duration: 1:54
Message: [Hi, Nayuki! I suppose I should explain last year’s messages. Sorry for taking this long to elaborate… I’d decided to make it a personal rule to only leave messages for you on Christmas. I believe it’s safer if I treat this like a ritual instead of an impulse. Otherwise, I’ll keep finding excuses to reach out when I shouldn’t… Though, again, I doubt you’ll hear me out; however, I’ll keep talking as if you will, anyway.

I just…ended up in the mountains somehow. There was a village nearby that needed supplies, and someone mentioned sightings of a yeti in the area, and—well. One thing led to another. You know how I am! I claimed that I’d only volunteered to go this far just to be helpful, but in all honesty, I think I just like seeing how far I can go before something breaks. And if I can prove the yeti’s existence before I fully break…wouldn’t that be amazing?

But I didn’t break. I didn’t find the yeti, either. The signal was terrible…there was snow everywhere. I almost ran out of rations! Moreover, my phone barely worked…and I probably shouldn’t have been recording anything in the first place. The first message was me being optimistic about reception. The second was late, and cold, and…poorly thought out. I just wanted to make it in time to greet you a merry Christmas.

…It’s already…the fourth Christmas eve I’ve spent without you, Nayuki. Oh, how time flies.]

VOICE MESSAGE
Date & Time: 12/25/54, 9:35 PM, Year 4
Sender: Unknown
Duration: 1:35
Message: […Merry Christmas, Nayuki.

I’ve thought a lot about what I almost said last year. The part that…cut off. I…I don’t think I meant it the way people usually mean those words. I’ve realized recently that I’m…not very good at love. Any kind of it. Romantic, platonic...familial—I don’t think I experience it properly. Haha… That’s what we argued about on the day we parted ways, right? I told you that…because I couldn’t love anyone…I couldn’t have a family of my own.

Just why did I say that to you? You are my family… The only brother I have…

…Maybe what I said last year…was just momentum. Or memory. Or the cold making everything feel heavier than it really was. I used to tell you those words so easily back when I hadn’t realized how devoid of love I actually was, after all. Over the years, it became harder to tell you…

Even now… Even now when I know you won’t receive these flimsy, pathetic messages… I’m still afraid…]

VOICE MESSAGE
Date & Time: 12/24/54, 7:30 PM, Year 5
Sender: Unknown
Duration: 3:24
Message: [The Yuletide season has arrived yet again, Nayuki. Did you know that what Christmas centers on differs depending on culture? In some countries, it’s deeply religious—something meant to be observed reverently, surrounded by family. But in JPN, it’s different, isn’t it? It’s brighter. Louder. More…performative. Christmas there feels like it belongs to couples more than anyone else… I guess even some more religion-centered countries are like that as well. Not that such is a horrid thing. I know that it isn’t always like that. I’ve just grown…embittered, I suppose.

It is a beautiful thing: love. I just don’t…understand why it feels like an ideal that has to be achieved. It’s odd. We spend Christmas together as a family throughout our childhood, year after year, without ever questioning it. Then, at some point—without any clear announcement—we reach a certain age, and it’s as if we’re gently ushered aside. The expectation shifts. Suddenly, you’re meant to spend it with someone, and not necessarily with the people you grew up with… I always thought that felt wrong.

Nayuki, I wonder; if we had been born in a different place, as a pair of brothers both similar and different to our current selves, would we have still kept on celebrating Christmas together with our parents? Would we have sat side by side at the dinner table, saying little, saying much, just existing amidst the familiar sounds of our home…? The clink of cutlery, the hum of the heater, mom moving about the kitchen… Ah, you always preferred calm over noise. I think I learned to do so, too—when I was with you…

Maybe in that other place, in that other life, Christmas wouldn’t be something we eventually leave behind. It would simply…remain. No one would tell us it was time to move on. No paparazzi would badger and wonder just when the Kitakata heir would find his beau and have the marriage of the century… It would be just the four of us, together, as we always were…

…What’s the point in thinking about this? Even in that other life, I’m certain that I will still be destined for death. I will still have to leave. I…I will still leave.

I’ll never see you again...]

VOICE MESSAGE
Date & Time: 12/25/54, 10:05 PM, Year 5
Sender: Unknown
Duration: 5:21
Message: […It’s been five years now. Five Christmases spent like this. All throughout, I’ve often found myself wondering—quietly, without expectation—whether I even cross your mind anymore. I…wouldn’t blame you if I didn’t. Life moves forward, after all. And so do you.

Still… I suppose it would be impossible for you to have avoided me entirely. I’ve seen my own face in newspapers and media channels I never meant to be in. I’ve heard my name spoken in languages I don’t fully understand. Every time something unfortunate happens somewhere, I just always seem to be there, either just before it, or just after. It’s almost comical, actually. Haha.

…If nothing else, I imagine that’s how you’d know I’m still alive.

They like to call what I do philanthropy. I don’t know if that’s an accurate term for it... It’s true that I go where affairs are unstable. Where people need help urgently, or where danger hasn’t decided who it belongs to yet. I go there, and I tell myself it’s for others, and somehow everyone around me believes me—just as they have done for as long as I can remember—but…if I’m honest, I think I’ve always been testing something... Such as my luck. My limits. My body. My fate.

It’s just as Dostoyevsky had said: “If there was one person on earth who knew better than anyone that I was a ridiculous man, then that person was I myself...” I know of this futility more than anyone in this world. I know how insincere I truly am, at my very core. At the end of it all, perhaps…I just wanted to see whether the world would finally grow tired of letting me walk away. Unfortunately for me, it hasn’t, though—at least, not yet.

…I wonder sometimes what you think when you hear about me. If you feel relieved that I’m still breathing…or annoyed that I keep surviving…or…or nothing at all. Any of those would be understandable.

I just…want you to know that I never sent these messages expecting forgiveness. Or reconciliation. Or even a reply. I think…I just needed a place where my voice could still reach you, even if only as an echo. And Christmas—it felt like the only time I could justify that. 

But I’m tired now, Nayuki.

Tired of lingering at the edges of your life. Tired of pretending this distance doesn’t hurt. Tired of ringing your abandoned number time and time again, hoping for an answer that will never arrive. Tired of…leaving pieces of myself in voicemails you’ll never play. So, this will be my last message.

I won’t call again next year… Or the year after that... I’ll leave you in peace...truly this time. Until the day this light in me finally ends. I have only…four more years left, anyway.

And so… And so, I… With all that my empty heart can muster… I hope your life is full. I hope it’s warm. I hope you’re safe, and laughing, and surrounded by people who know how to stay. I hope… I hope you become truly happy, Nayuki.

…Merry Christmas…

I miss you.]

[You have no more voicemails left to play.]

[Would you like to replay everything again?]

Yes.