Ame

On the train, I flipped through some of Ryoya’s messages and photos. I had assumed, because his parents always seemed to be away in the game, that his relationship to his parents was similar to mine. My parents were usually gone; working, on trips, and so forth—and then weren’t the nicest people when they were home. However, Ryoya’s relationship with his own seemed much friendlier. His mom had messaged him multiple pictures already today, captioned “Today’s walk”. They were pretty shots of Senzuko Pond reflecting pink cherry blossoms waving in the wind, pictures of the trees themselves, and pictures of ducks out on the water. Ryoya had replied and said “I should go over there and draw everything before the cherry blossoms go away”. His mom had reacted with a heart.

He had a ton of photos saved, but they were all from a few years ago. Since he’d started high school, he’d become an infrequent picture taker (or a frequent deleter). I didn’t know how they co-existed with Fate; he probably bought storage in the Cloud.

I scrolled through the contacts. Sanada Sae and Mae, whose surname turned out to be Kobayashi, both had cute duck-face selfies as their profile pictures. They’d successfully secured spots on Ryoya’s phone, which I remembered girls fighting over when I’d played the route (and yet he’d added the heroine like it was no big deal, which had made my heart flutter!). It checked out, given that he’d taken them out for coffee too.

It was a short walk to get to his house, which…wasn’t exactly a mansion. I stood back at the gate and looked at it. It was a big, luxurious Western-style and new-looking building; encircled by low stone walls that surrounded interior groves of bamboo, so you couldn’t see in the yard. I opened the gate and found that in front of the house was a sprawling rin-sen garden, with a path wandering away to a backyard as well. Out of curiosity, I went back there and looked; it was a lot smaller than a classic huge mansion or estate, where you would expect endless fields, but it was well-kept, if less formal than the front. There was a ping-pong table, a pool table and barbecue grill under the shade of a second-floor balcony, and a big mix of plants including berries and fruit trees in the sunny part of the yard. All of this was in a central area close to schools and shopping malls. I definitely got the impression that these were people who could afford to send their kid to the fancy private high school, Sakura Academy. The yard also felt cosy and comfortable; like it was made for people, not just appearances. Even the front yard felt like that; since it was secluded by bamboo, it was like a place for the family to get away into nature. Had his parents designed the grounds?

“I’m home!”

“Welcome home!” called a distant voice. “How was your club?”

Not “how was your date”? Guess he lies even to a good family.“It was good! I’m going up to my room for a bit!”

“Okay; dinner’s in 45 minutes!”

…Where was my room?

I hadn’t been called out on the “going up” line, so it was probably upstairs. There was a staircase near the door. I kicked off my shoes, put on indoor slippers, and headed up.

There were only a few doors. I opened them onto a guest room, a bathroom, and a room I thought for a second was mine. I realized it wasn’t when I clocked that none of the wallpaper matched the background that had been shown in the part of the game where the heroine got invited up to Ryoya’s room. Clutter in that room sat in big boxes; the bed wasn’t slept in, and the desk was completely clear. It’s probably his older brother’s room. Ryoya’s older brother was away at university. Finally, through the door on the other side of the hall, was the room with the right decoration and wallpaper.

The floor was clean, the bed was made, but the room was crammed with stuff, more so than the game had showed with its simplified backgrounds—because it was all on shelves and behind doors. Two large bookshelves were packed mostly with sketchbooks, notebooks, and games, a few actual books pushed in there as afterthoughts and textbooks eking out a few inches of space. Stuff was double layered and balanced on top of other things. Old school projects occupied the top shelves. A dressing table and mirror had their own space, fitting a flirty guy preoccupied with appearance. Jewelry, a hairbrush, and vanilla-scented deodorant sat on top; I opened a drawer in the table, which I hadn’t been able to do in the game, and discovered to my mild horror that there was concealer, acne cream, acne patches, and moisturizer. Okay, it was totally reasonable that Ryoya needed to take care of his skin. He was a teenage boy, after all. But would I have to do that? I’d never thought of myself as hot, nor tried to get into a relationship. Therefore, I’d mostly left my appearance alone. I’d have to start a new routine.

His clothes were in a wardrobe next to the dressing table, but there was also a built-in closet on the opposing wall. I slid open one of the doors—

and a canvas almost fell on me.

I managed to grab it in time and carefully ease it to the ground. It was an almost fully-painted portrait of the same young girl who was in his sketchbook. She was a middle schooler wearing a sailor-style uniform. Her hair was dark brown with a carefully shaded lighter streak, burnt into it by the sun. The other parts of her face were rendered in similar detail; the slightly chapped skin on her lips, her tan that was darker over her nose and lighter on her collarbone, the curve of her smile. She looked happy in this one.

Her name was Ame. When she was fourteen years old, she’d died from cancer. She’d been Ryoya’s first love—and his last, until the heroine. That was his tragic backstory; that was why he didn’t take any other girl seriously, just led them on. Sitting here, on Ryoya’s floor, in his body, looking down at this painstaking portrait, I wanted to laugh at how trite it all was in Delinquent Love!. I couldn’t move on, but you healed my heart. Meeting a random other girl let Ryoya move on, huh? The guy who took about a million photos up until Ame died, and never deleted them—who then stopped taking pictures, afterwards?

I got up and pulled a sketchbook from the bookshelf. Flipping to a random page, there Ame was again.

Ryoya kept all his sketchbooks, too. All his school projects. He bought extra storage just to keep a game he didn’t play around. He didn’t seem like someone who could just let go and keep living.

I had never met Ame. I hadn’t known her birthday until forty-five minutes ago, and even then I was just guessing from that phone password. I only knew her as the girl Ryoya was grieving. I didn’t know what she liked, what she cared about, who she was. Ryoya, I was sure, had branded that information into his memory. She would be alive in his mind, if nowhere else.

Now he was gone. Another thread connecting Ame to the world had been severed. It was up to her family and other friends to think of her now, if she had them. I didn’t even know if she had them.

I couldn’t get all guilty over this. She was already dead. I hadn’t chosen to take Ryoya’s body, and he was a fictional character anyway. So was Ame. In fact, since I’d never seen her in person, who knew if she had had the same flesh and blood that the others had now; the same real-person look; the same unignorable reality. She was clinging onto reality by Ryoya’s devotion—but Ryoya wasn’t even real. Maybe he’d only taken on this flesh-and-blood form when I took his body. More accurately, Ame was clinging onto reality by my knowledge of her, by the players of the game who did Ryoya’s route and found out who she was. Therefore, it was fine that I’d taken Ryoya’s body. I was her real chief mourner.

It was getting dark outside; the sun low over the horizon, hiding in orange and lavender wisps of cloud. As I watched, it sunk down under the Earth, leaving the sky empty. The light hadn’t faded yet; between the clouds, everything was a distant gray-blue. Pit. Pat. It was starting to rain. A few more small drops, then like flipping a switch, water poured down in a giant cascade.

I went through Ryoya’s phone and deleted the apps in the unused category. I put the canvas back in the closet, and stood it up neatly so it wouldn’t fall again.

“Ryoya! Dinner!”

“Coming, Mom!” I hurriedly smeared some concealer over the bruise, then ran down the stairs.

➽──────❥ ❀⊱༺♡༻⊰❀ ➽──────❥

I kept quiet at the table, even though Ryoya was a talkative guy. I didn’t know much about how he interacted with his parents, nor as much about his personal life as I could. Luckily, Ryoya’s dad was also home, and kept up a lively conversation with Ryoya’s mom, so I didn’t have to support the conversation on my own.

They were both glamorous-looking people with some of Ryoya’s features. Ryoya’s face was more similar to his dad’s; his hair was more similar to his mom’s. I remembered from his character sheet that his mom was a socialite and travel blogger, and his dad was a doctor.

“Is everything okay? You haven’t said anything all dinner.”

“Oh—yeah! I’m just kind of tired.”

Ryoya’s dad looked me over with a scrutinizing eye. “Have you been fighting again?”

“Of course not, dear, he said he swore that off last year,” his mom said. “Isn’t that right, Ryoya?”

I squirmed in my seat—and had a distinct feeling of connection with Ryoya, who’d probably be doing the same. “Yeah, it’s right…”

“You know,” his dad said, “if you ever end up in trouble, even if it’s because you’ve been doing something you shouldn’t—like fighting—just give us a call.”

Huh?

“We want you to tell us. In fact, we need you to never get in fights and to stay on the right side of the law.” He waited for a moment.

“Okay,” I said.

He continued, “But don’t let worrying about our anger stop you from keeping yourself safe. If you’re in serious danger, you can call us, and we won’t ask any questions.”

“...Okay.”

Silence. Chopsticks clicking against each other.

“I think I’m going to go up and go to bed early.”

“On a Friday night?” Ryoya’s mom asked.

“Yeah, I’m tired.” I pushed my chair back and stood, taking my plate and glass over to the sink and washing them off.

The rain poured down. The water dripped off my hands as I tried to find the dishwasher in this unfamiliar room. There it was—

“Don’t put your dishes in there,” Ryoya’s mom said, “it’s clean, didn’t you see the magnet on the front?”

Sure, whatever. Magnets.

I missed my sister. Ryoya’s skin chafed around me. Why couldn’t I have just gone into this world as myself? I just wanted to be myself!

No, you don’t.

I put the dishes in the sink.