Chapter 14: The Boy Who Froze

The cold came first. It was neither the cold air of winter that painfully slows the blood, but a cold that was deep, hollow and enveloped my ribs and remained there motionless and obstinate. I exhaled and was not able to turn a single hair on my lungs. The globe lay still again, reconstructing itself gradually bit by bit.

Behind me, Hina stumbled. I can not... see it now, she said, and her voice shook. But there is something wrong with this one. I sustained her on a half-built wall. It was like old hospital tiles, but flickered, as though not quite aware whether it was reality or mere memory.

It was like the body of Hina was being redrawn after every few seconds.

I turned forward.

The room before him had extended gradually.

White walls.

Plastic chairs.

The incessant clamor of dead fluorescent light.

After which there was the smell: antiseptic, blackened coffee, powdery gloves.

It was that hallway, not any room, in this hospital.

It took me a while before I realized I was no longer breathing as my chest started paining me.

My legs were going of their own will, making little noises.

In an emerald chair at the very end was an inconsequential boy. His legs were so short that they could not reach the floor. There was a hair sticking up at the back of his head. A piece of cheap toy bell hung on his hand jangling.

I stopped. The boy didn’t look up. Two or three few words passed without a murmur.

I took a slow breath. “...Hey.” The lad stared but made no reply.

I got nearer and crouched a few feet away without frightening him. “You’re… me,” I said softly.

Slowly, as it were, the boy turned his head.

His eyes met mine.

He said, “you were not supposed to forget.”

No greeting.

No curiosity.

Just that one sharp line.

I knew my inside was aching.

It was not an angry but a betrayed tone.

The voice of the boy was low, yet every word came like a blow. “You told us we would never end up being like those. That we’d protect people. That we’d remember.”

I had attempted to answer, but words had been choked in my throat. The boy looked away.

“You have failed to look after her, you did not, he muttered. A pause. You saw her pushed into the locker and you did not say a word.” I flinched. “I was a kid. I didn’t know—”

“You were aware that she cried in the bathroom every day. You heard it.” He stood now, little more than my squat height.

“You didn’t help her. The system just shoved her in your face, and you did not even remember her name.

“I—”

“You decided to forget and forget about her, like about dad.” I got stuck, got silenced.

The boy stared hard.

“You said to yourself that he did the best. That he meant well. That he did not make good his vow that night. But you knew he wouldn’t come.”

His hands shook. The keychain he was holding in his fist was clattering--a very childish, and as though it were out of place sound in the air.

The boy said, voice wobbling, “You stood in this hall. You waited for him. And failing which, you smiled. You smiled and said to the nurse that he must have been busy.”

I looked down.

The floor shimmered.

“Well, you lied in his defence,” the boy said, “and you have been lying all along.”

My breathing was rapid and shallow.

“I could not afford to lose everything.”

“You already did,” the boy said.

“You lost Ayaka. And you forgot her too, and did not cling. That’s why you’re here.”

A long silence fell. The face of the boy screwed up but slightly.

“You left me here. All alone. It was that you could not endure to recollect how it used to feel.”

I reached out slowly. The boy recoiled. I whispered, “I know I did all of that. I claimed it was survival but it was cowardice.”

I swallowed.

“I was scared,” he admitted. “And I never wanted to be you again.”

The boy turned his face away.

Haruto let the silence hang.

“You waited here,” he said. “All of this time. You would have preserved the most unpleasant of them because I must go on.

He reached into his pocket. There was, somehow, impossibly, this broken keychain bell again, the one the boy was carrying. He held it up.

“I still remember this,” he said. The boy stared at his keychain, then at Haruto.

“You’re not brave.”

“I know.”

“You’ll forget even more.”

“I know.”

“You’re going to lose Hina.”

That hit hard.

Haruto didn’t answer.

The boy walked forward - gradually - until he was quite near him.

Then, he held out the bell.

“Take it,” he said.

Haruto hesitated.

“You are not a great guy”, the kid kept on saying.

“But you came anyway. That counts.”

Haruto took the bell.

The grin placed on the boy was merely a smile. Only for a second. Then he fuzzed out and got pixelated like a memory in your brain, rather than falling. Haruto did not take the trouble to pay attention. He forced himself to watch.

The lights were dimmed, and so was the corridor. Nothing more than just a blank white space still in flux to the adjoining area. Hina was stretched on the edge, against a half-complete bench. The lady appeared to be a ten-year-old in ten minutes.

She bobbed on its hook. Haruto advanced toward him with that bell still in his hand. “It was you,” she murmured.

“Right? That echo?”

He nodded. She blinked wide. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

Haruto sat down next to her.

Her eyes were wet, all of them, glaring like statically.

“You were a good kid.” Haruto shook his head.

“You were,” she said. “You were frightened, little, idiotic-- but yet you wanted to do the best thing.”

She nearly leaned against his shoulder. “I wish I could have met you so long ago,” she thought. He felt her shiver.

“I forgot my name, I think.”

Haruto spun around. “What?”

“I mean… not fully. I know it’s Hina. but when you told me it a moment ago it was not at all your second, it was not your own at all.”

He swallowed. His watch buzzed softly.

07:56:00.

No alarm, just the tick. Time is rolling--or memories are slip-sliding.

The minimal length format worked. The system was no longer monitoring his survival to understand its ability to retain him. Seven hours were not enough to reach a die indicator -seven hours were enough to succumb to a total system reboot.

“You’re still here,” he said.

“For now.”

He squeezed her hand.

She kept it tight. And here somewhere above, a ring of a bell had been or once-- gentle, but long.