Chapter Text
“Next, please.”
The door was ajar. Dr. Isaac’s voice slipped through the gap, steady and without the slightest ripple.
Jack Merridew pushed the door open and entered the treatment room. The room was unexpectedly cramped. The walls were pale blue, washed out as if rinsed countless times, and even the leather chaise longue by the window looked somewhat faded. Opposite the chaise was a wooden desk, bare except for a lamp and several stacks of folders.
Dr. Isaac raised a hand. Jack sat down on the chaise, leaning against the backrest. He was not wearing a hospital gown—that sort of thing felt like humiliation on his body. People from the Merridew family should wear shirts and well-tailored suits when going out—crisp collars, tie clips glinting under the light—rather than loose fabric that smelled of disinfectant. At this moment, he calmly met the doctor’s gaze, but his fingers unconsciously gripped the cuff of his sleeve.
Dr. Isaac sat down behind the desk, opened the medical record, and ran his fingertip down the notes.
“Jack, how are you feeling today?”
“Fine.”
“Your mother says you often wake up startled at night.”
Jack did not respond. His thumb kept rubbing back and forth along the seam of the cuff.
Dr. Isaac closed the file and leaned forward slightly. “You know why you’re here. There’s a gap in your memory. From a certain point onward, some things you simply cannot recall. You volunteered for hypnotherapy, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” The doctor stood up, walked to the window, and drew the curtains tightly shut. The room sank into darkness, leaving only the warm yellow glow of the desk lamp. “I will guide you into relaxation. All you need to do is listen to me and tell me what you see.”
Jack closed his eyes.
The doctor’s voice came from a few steps away, low and gentle. He had Jack breathe deeply, feeling the airflow fill his nostrils and expand his lungs. Jack’s fingers loosened from the cuff. He folded his hands over his abdomen.
“You are now in a corridor,” the doctor’s voice grew even softer, “what do you see?”
Jack’s lips moved. Pale blue walls emerged from the haze, blurring into color blocks before assembling into the outline of a school uniform shirt.
“…Light.”
“What kind of light?”
“Light from the corridor windows. It falls in and is sliced into several strips by the window frames.”
“And?”
“Fluorescent tubes. One is broken and keeps flickering.”
He paused.
“Someone is laughing.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
His fingers twisted together.
“What else do you see?”
“…Someone is being cornered in front of a locker. Two seniors, surrounding one person. That person—”
His voice broke again. Dr. Isaac did not press him. The room was so quiet that a pin could be heard dropping.
“…He’s keeping his head down,” Jack finally continued, “I can’t see his face clearly.”
“Do you know who he is?”
Jack shook his head. A name was already on the tip of his tongue, but the moment it was about to slip out, something blocked it.
Dr. Isaac watched him. Under the dim lamplight, the boy’s face looked exceptionally pale. “Don’t rush. For now, I only want you to recall that corridor. You see yourself standing there. What happens next?”
Jack uttered a few words:
“…I walked over.”
At the end of the corridor, the broken fluorescent tube kept flickering, emitting a faint buzzing sound.
When Jack turned out of the stairwell, the first thing he heard was laughter. After several years in boarding school, he had long learned to distinguish what lay beneath laughter—this kind had nothing to do with friendliness.
Turning the corner, he saw Simon Cambourne.
He recognized that face. On the first day of enrollment, all the new students of the grade had crowded into the auditorium. Jack stood in the front row, his gaze sweeping over every face. This was something he did in any new environment: identify who was not to be trifled with, who was worth talking to more, and who could be ignored. Simon stood at the very end of the line, quietly staring into space, lost in thought.
Jack had given him an extra glance—not for any particular reason, but because of those eyes. The moment Simon lifted his head, Jack caught a glimpse of a certain color. A green that was not vivid, like leaves washed by rain and not yet dry, their freshness muted by moisture and blending with the brownish hue around the pupils.
Later, he never deliberately looked at those eyes again, even though they were in the same grade and both in the choir. During rehearsals, Simon’s voice would drift from the back row—clear, pure, with pitch as precise as a tuned instrument. When they occasionally brushed past each other in the corridor, Jack’s peripheral vision would catch the top of brown hair, but his gaze never lingered.
But today was different.
Two senior boys had Simon pinned against a locker. One gripped his collar and pressed him against the door, while the other leaned casually nearby, twirling a wooden ruler. The restrained Simon did not struggle or call for help. He turned his head slightly, revealing only half his face.
He was the same as always—too quiet. So quiet that the ones bullying him found it unsatisfying.
“Little young master Cambourne, why aren’t you saying anything today?”
The boy with the ruler leaned in, pressing the cold ruler under Simon’s chin. Simon’s gaze dropped to the floor, his lips pressed into a straight line. The flickering light fell on his cheek in broken flashes, intermittently illuminating his already fair face. Standing among the other boys, he looked almost too delicate, out of place.
“So pretty,” the boy said, dragging out the last syllable.
Jack slipped his hands into his pockets and raised an eyebrow. He had always regarded the choir as his territory, and everyone in it fell under his jurisdiction.
So he walked over.
“Let him go.”
All three turned their heads at once. The two seniors recognized the prefect badge on his uniform and showed clear impatience. Simon’s gaze also lifted, landed on him, then quickly shifted away.
“None of your business, Merridew.”
Jack stood his ground, jaw tense, showing no intention of backing down.
“He’s in the choir,” Jack said. “If you want to have fun, find someone else.”
“The choir?” The boy with the ruler scoffed. “There are so many in the choir. Do you manage all of them?”
“Yes.”
Jack stared at the two boys, waiting for their decision.
Sure enough, after a few seconds of hesitation, the boy put the ruler away. Before leaving, he playfully patted Simon’s cheek, like patting a disobedient pet.
“See you next time, Cambourne.”
Only after the two disappeared from sight did Jack turn back.
Simon was still leaning against the locker, hair slightly disheveled. Jack could only see his nose and his tightly pressed thin lips. He bent down, picked up the scattered books and pens on the ground, and stuffed them one by one back into Simon’s arms.
“Next time don’t take this route. Go out the back door of the classroom and turn left. That side corridor is usually empty and can help you avoid a lot of troubles.”
Simon nodded, clutching the spines of the books tightly.
Jack turned and left. His leather shoes tapped rhythmically against the floor. At the end of the corridor, a mirror stood at the corner—placed by the teachers to remind the boys to mind their appearance. As he passed, he caught a glimpse of his own face—golden hair falling over his forehead, brows stubbornly furrowed.
When he pushed open the dormitory door, Maurice was sitting on the windowsill flipping through a magazine, and Roger was leaning against the headboard, slowly wiping his knife with a piece of flannel.
“Heard you confronted some seniors in the corridor?” Maurice poked his head out from behind the magazine.
Jack lay down on the bed. “Who told you?”
“News travels faster than you think,” Roger said without looking up. “You helped that Cambourne.”
“He’s in the choir.”
Maurice glanced at him but said nothing more.
Jack rolled over to face the wall and began thinking about things he shouldn’t.
When Simon lowered his eyes, his lashes cast shadows that covered most of his irises, leaving only a thin line of green—like a pool of still water that no wind could stir. Yet within that trace of green, there was clearly something he couldn’t name.
At the thought, Jack exhaled irritably and closed his eyes.
The treatment room remained silent for a long time.
Dr. Isaac sat at the desk, watching Jack on the chaise. Jack’s fingers curled into fists, as if trying to grasp something.
After a while, Jack spoke: “His name… I can’t remember it.”
The doctor’s pen tip stopped on the paper. “Jack, can you still see that person?”
“His eyes are green.”
The room fell quiet again. The doctor pushed open the treatment room door and whispered to the nurse in the corridor, “Let him lie down a little longer.” Then he returned to the desk and wrote a line in the blank space of the medical record:
Recurrent same scene. Corridor. Light. Someone lifts head. Name cannot be retrieved.