Chapter 35: The Cost of Meaning

Haruto didn't realize until Hina called his name.

She called it twice.

And both times, he blinked as if she was summoning another person.

They were outside the remains of the bookstore, wind weaving through shattered signs and leaves that had lost track of what season they belonged to. The city was holding—for the time being. But Haruto wasn't sure he was.

"Haruto," she called, again.

This time he turned his head. "Yeah?"

Yet the word was far away. Like a memory from secondhand, or one he'd just heard once.

It sounded strange in his ears. Not incorrect, but as if it had belonged to someone else originally and he was lending it.

He said nothing about it. He did not wish to frighten her.

The countdown ticked in the corner of his vision:

6:46:50

He looked away from her. "We need to move."

But even that sentence contained a discord. We—as in the two of them. But something in his head was fighting to include her. Not her voice. Not her face.

Just… her importance.

Like he knew she was important, but the whys were dripping away one drop at a time.

He hated that.

He hated that something so fundamental could start to feel like it was venturing into optional.

And worse, it wasn't just her.

As they strolled through the city dissipating, Haruto's footsteps were half-timed with reality. Storefronts bore faces for names. Streets mid-sentenced into new names. The sky hemorrhaged gradients he no longer had words for.

"What's that color?" he asked, looking up.

Hina looked up as well. "Which one?"

"The… uh… " He hesitated. The word was there a moment before. A simple one. Easy.

Now, gone.

He shook his head. "Never mind.".

Hina looked at him. Worry masked by pretended normality.

Then she halted. "Do you recall my scarf?"

"Yeah. It's…" He gazed at it. Familiar. Blue? Was it always blue?

He opened his mouth. Shut it. Then opened it once more, attempting to sew the word back into his mind.

"I… think I do."

She looked down. "It was yellow. When we first met."

His heart sank. Not because of the error. Because of how uncertain he was that she was correct.

Was she correct?

The sidewalk cracked beneath foot as if in response.

They walked by the school again—not the actual one, but the one cobbled together by recollection that reflected elements from each loop. A half-ruined bell tower. Classrooms suspended on strings. Chalkboards filled with equations that erased themselves.

Haruto stopped.

Something about this location.

He walked through a doorway without a wall to frame it.

Within: The sound of Ayaka's laughter.

Clear. Crisp. Yet wrong.

He turned.

The room was empty.

The voice continued. "You don't recall the rooftop, do you?"

He glanced upwards. A memory of her formed in its stead. Not Ayaka herself. Only the echo.

"No," he whispered.

She smiled not unkindly. "It's all right. I remember you."

He took a step back. The memory faltered.

Another voice in the hallway: "You held my hand first."

A girl with half a face. Hina? Another?

"I…" Haruto backed away. "I don't…"

But names were too numerous. Voices too many. And none were lingering.

The countdown shone:

6:43:22

He dropped to his knees.

He couldn't say if the tears were his own—or borrowed.

Outside, the sky had brightened.

No sun. Just light that was cold.

Haruto looked at his hands. They shook, but not from fear. From disconnection. Like they might forget how to move.

Hina crouched beside him.

“I’m still here,” she whispered.

He looked at her.

She looked like Hina.

Sounded like her.

But a part of him doubted. Not because she changed. But because he had.

“I don’t want to forget you,” he said.

“Then don’t.”

“It’s not up to me.”

She took his hand.

And for an instant, he was anchored. The world vibrated.

But then the shape of her fingers blurred.

And he could not recall how they had met.

His breath hitched.

"What if I forget everything?" he asked.

"Then I'll remember us," she said.

She reached out. Laid her hand on his forehead. Her hand was warm — too warm, as if it seared her memory into him by sheer will.

She whispered a date. A detail. A joke they shared. The vending machine that had gobbled his money three times. The day he gave her his umbrella and acted like it was nothing. The song she sang under her breath when she didn't think he was listening.

And it returned—briefly. Like a spark in the rain.

His lips shook. "That really happened?"

She nodded. "You laughed like it hurt. I never forgot that."

He closed his eyes.

And it was enough.

Just enough to make him stand again.

They reached the old train tracks.

The Cartographer stood waiting.

Map fragments drifted around him like dying fireflies, each one curling inwards before vanishing into thin strands of unmade light.

“You’ve anchored five,” he said.

Haruto nodded slowly.

“And now your tether is splitting.”

Haruto didn’t respond at first.

He felt it—a hairline crack across his mind, a pain behind his eyes. He parted his lips, but the question he was going to pose dissolved before reaching his mouth.

"What if it breaks?" he was finally able to whisper.

"You lose coherence," said the Cartographer. "You will be… but no longer in sequence. A person adrift."

Haruto's fists clenched. His breath stuck in his throat. It wasn't death that scared him. It was dissolution. To be alive still but not recalled, not even by yourself.

"I thought the anchors would hold them secure," he said.

"They are secure," the Cartographer said gently. "But you are not."

Hina moved forward, voice tiny but cutting. "Isn't there another way?"

"There's always another way," the Cartographer said. "But not always a better one."

Haruto gazed up into the swirling sky.

He could sense it: the loops wrapping around him, threads spinning out.

His mission spinning out.

He thought of Ayaka. The boy on the bench. Hina whispering his name when he couldn't remember.

And in that tangle, one thing was sure:

He had wanted to remember.

And now he would have to pay the price.

The countdown ticked on.

6:41:00