【原创】End of Time（英文版）

Summary:

YOU – “I love you, you know that, don’t you?” You murmur, caressing his cheek, your thumb stroking his temple.

KIM KITSURAGI – He nuzzles your hand, the corner of his mouth curling up wryly.

EMPATHY [Legendary: Success] – That’s one of the first things he’s ever learned.

KIM KITSURAGI – “If only I could ever forget,” he whispers, kissing your palm.

(A reverse timeline AU, sequel to All in Due Time, HarryKim, M/R)

CONTENT WARNING: Suicidal Ideation, Self Harm, Bullying, Canon-Compliant Substance Abuse on Kim’s Part, Panic Attack

Also Palefuckery but i suppose it’s the least of the problems. Consider yourself warned and proceed with caution.

So after nearly a year’s struggle I’m bringing you this: a ending to their story. I don’t know if anyone remembers this or cares at all, but here it is…This might not make sense if you skip the previous parts of this series.

Work Text:

Quan el temps no fou temps,

sinó un cos embolcallat pel teu cos.

(When time is time no more,

but a body enveloped in yours.)

— Vitralls, Marina Rossell

There is nothing. After the blinding blaze, there is nothing. Only a cold shroud of grey mist. Your consciousness floats throughout, stretching thin in countless directions and dissolving into a myriad of whispers, your existence dispersed in a billion feeble moments, everywhere in all time all at once—

No, not precisely. Time has ceased to exist for you. You are scattered in the space beyond that infinite line, thinly enveloping its extension, merging with the explosions of time itself at each end, filling every wound they tear into reality. Whatever remains of you pours into the fractured void, retracing the trajectory of the shrapnel from the eight bullets exploding in Dolores Dei’s chest, against the indentation that oval clamps make into the flesh of a stillborn fetus, flowing back towards the point where tattoo ink laces into a fresh wound, converging into the oily stain on a Joopson AS catalogue no. J327 Bright Tie that’s just about to dissolve into the blue spirits the very next instant, burrowing into the first crack of some ugly porcelain vase as it crashes to the ground, back into—

“Come back…” sobs a low, hoarse voice that sounds vaguely familiar. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…please come back…”

—his hand attempting to quash grief with violence, that clutches the rim of the vase before it falls. The same way he clutched sheets and clothes as he found pleasure with men of different faces. The way he clutched his hands into fists as bullies kicked hard into his stomach. The way he clutched his mother’s finger with small hands barely bigger than a coin. The way he clutched the locker door as he said goodbye to Domingo García Jiménez, friend turned into stranger, who had died for him and once shared his bed, watching him leave on the day they first met. The way he clutched, as he struggled on the brink of death, at—

Kim. It’s Kim…

—your hand. The way he clutched at the edge of the bar as he looked at you walking into the pub. The way he clutched the lever as he glanced sideways at you and hit the accelerator. The way he clutched the payphone receiver in his young hands as he wept. The way he clutched his Kiejl A9 Armistice as he aimed at Ruud—

The way he clutched the bakelite grip as he pressed the cold muzzle of the A9 Armistice against his temple…

VOLITION [Impossible: Failure] – What??

YOU – “Kim!!!”

Kim Kitsuragi blinks. He even feels a slight impulse to look at the receiver in his hand, but he’s hardly prone to such theatrics. Harry’s dramatic enough for the both of them. The voice on the receiver is no doubt Harry’s, and the urgency arouses his concern on reflex, except Harry is standing right behind him, safe and sound, though he’s beginning to notice with alarm how tense Kim got. “What’s wrong, Kim?”

“I think…I think I heard your voice on the phone. It’s calling me.”

“Ah…must be entroponetic crosstalk, like in Martinaise—” he stops short at the mention of Martinaise and looks cautiously at Kim, who couldn’t help rolling his eyes. Understandably, as Kim goes back farther, Harry gets more and more wary of the subject, concerning Kim’s *condition*, but Kim gets tired just watching him dance around it, because come on, is that really necessary? “It’s okay,” Kim reaches out to pat his arm anyway. “Now, we should try dialing again…”

LOGIC [Easy: Success] – This Kim is still safe and sound with you. What you saw before that, however—

EMPATHY [Legendary: Success] – That’s—

—the day Kim officially enters the RCM and receives his pistol. That night, he strokes the bakelite and briefly contemplates the possibility of ending everything here. He raises the gun to his temple, unexpectedly calm, curious as to what would happen if he fired it, whether time would collapse or whether his entire existence would just be quietly erased as Elysium gives nothing more than a slight shake to correct itself and goes on as usual, or whether he’d be forced to reset the day…All the unknown melts into a blankness in his mind. Eventually he lowers the gun. It’s as if feeling the muzzle of the gun against his temple alone was enough to pacify that thirst for destruction. Maybe it’s because things haven’t come to total despair just yet. And if he’s more honest with himself—

LOGIC [Medium: Success] – He certainly didn’t pull the trigger. He lived on. You even had a glimpse of his childhood, didn’t you? Willingly or unwillingly, he has followed that path, backwards and backwards, to the very end.

YOU – That’s so *him*…

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] – It’s not that simple. Nor is that the moment when he’s truly close to tipping off the edge.

Kim throws the knife at Harry—a Harry who bears more age and sadness than he ever remembered—and it goes straight through him, hitting the wall, and then falling to the ground with a clink. “Fuck you!” He roars in fury, “You’re not here…you’re not real…” and as soon as the truth spills out, hot tears instantly well up and whip away the anger, leaving his whole body deflated. His legs give out as he slides down the wall onto the floor. He curls up to protect his chest, trying to chase away that cold, sore feeling, as if it’s been hollowed out completely. “You’re not here…”

YOU – I’m not there for him…

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] – No. It’s indeed you. The person he sees and cries out to, that’s *you*. Somehow you feel it.

INLAND EMPIRE [Godly: Success] – But that’s not always a good thing for him. Sure, you are there, but not in a way that matters.

VOLITION [Legendary: Failure] – It would have hurt less to have that knife actually stab you in the chest, if you still had a physical form, that is, than to just stand by and watch. That pain of having failed him…

EMPATHY [Heroic: Success] – …is nothing but a delusion. There’s such arrogance to that thought, failing him, as if you’ve got the means to solve all his problems. He knows, and you know, too, that there is nothing *you* can do about it, about any of it. He never expects you to make it all go away like magic, and he’s fully aware that you are not to blame for his suffering.

… Except that in despair, he has no other outlet than you.

CONCEPTUALIZATION – An attempt to use the phantom limb to relieve the phantom pain.

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] – No, darling. Just because the pain is invisible to the eye, doesn’t mean it’s not real.

INLAND EMPIRE – And obviously, you’re not exactly just a phantom either.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] – At least it’s better than nothing. Sometimes you are the last line of defence between him and the abyss, the last buffer before he crumbles…

Kim sits on the edge of the roof, looking down at his feet swinging in the air, and the scuffs on his shoes from when he fell today. The stain on the inside of his right shoe that just wouldn’t be rubbed off, turns out it’s from today, though of course there would be more in the future…He’s worn these shoes for so long that his feet have obviously shrunk too much to fill them up, and they are getting bulkier and heavier. His clothes become thicker and stiffer with each wash. It’s him who’s shrinking, getting lighter and lighter, as it becomes increasingly hard to land himself in this reality.

If he slips, just a little, would he float in the air?

“Hey, they’re about to lock up,” Harry says from beside him. His spoilsport. Fair enough. With his luck, even if he jumped, his clothes would probably get caught on something and break his fall. He might not even break a bone, and just get himself huge bruises and trouble instead, more so if he tore his clothes somehow and had to mend them himself. He certainly won’t float in the air. Even right this moment, his weight is putting pressure on some bruise on the underside of his leg, the hidden pain reminding him that he’s tied to the ground, and that he isn’t going anywhere.

So he just sighs and says, “I know.” He turns and swings his skinny legs back to the safety of the floor, and picks up his worn-out bag without looking back at Harry.

YOU – Is that really *me*?

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] – Yes.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] – If that’s possible, then you have to go to him. How can you leave him alone in all this misery? You have to find him.

YOU – But how…?

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Impossible: Failure] – I’m afraid no one knows, neither the theory nor the practice. Let’s forget for a minute about finding a voice for him to hear and a form for him to see. The fact that you even have a consciousness, that you still exist as *you*, is already a miracle in itself.

YOU – What about Kim? Is he the same?

LOGIC – Do you feel the presence of anyone else?

…

…

YOU – …No.

VOLITION [Legendary: Failure] – So it’s just me, with no hope of finding him…

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Legendary: Success] – Maybe you can. If you can piece your consciousness together by focusing on him, then maybe *he* can be somewhere in the pale, too.

LOGIC [Formidable: Success] – In fact, he is everywhere, dissolved and diluted into this vast and thin nothingness, just as you were before.

INLAND EMPIRE – Dimly scattered.

YOU – So how do I find him?

INLAND EMPIRE [Impossible: Success] – You pan for every trace of his soul in the vast ocean of memories. So daunting a task with hope so slim.

LOGIC – Might take an eternity.

VOLITION [Easy: Success] – Good thing that time is no more. At the end of it all, dispersed into every broken moment all at once, the last thing you need to worry about is time.

YOU – But how, exactly?

LOGIC [Formidable: Success] – …Maybe just try focusing on him first. Follow the feeling and see if you can find an opening again.

YOU – Focus…

LOGIC – Let’s get it straight. For a moment there you seemed to have gotten through to him. What might have triggered that?

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] – A strong burst of emotion.

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] – Forming a momentary pathway along the connection between you and him.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] – Piercing through every fissure of reality, where it’s the weakest.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] – Through the pale: rarefied matter. Diluted past. You are in the seams between the interwoven fibres of the world. For example, you were passing sound through entroponetic crosstalk, seeping into the airwaves —

YOU – You remember picking up the phone receiver and hearing a little boy’s cry. More than once, you heard the same ghost-like echo, interlaced with static, “I don’t like it here, Harry…take me away…please…I don’t want to be here; I want to go home…”

ENCYCLOPEDIA – A recording trapped in the circuitry…

“Wait, a recording trapped in the circuitry?” Harry turns to him and asks, confused. Kim nods. It’s hard to keep looking at him, so Kim turns his eyes at the sea in the distance. Everything Harry has taught him, he’ll have to give back. “Mhmh. I don’t have time to explain it to you right now. Maybe some time later…”

INLAND EMPIRE – A life trapped in a loop…

Kim jolts awake, heart pounding wildly, the unfathomable pain and fear still clenching him with a deadly grip. He can’t move, he can’t breathe…but Harry’s there. Harry’s sitting on the edge of his bed, leaning down, impalpable hands trying to stroke his hair and cheek, impalpable forehead trying to touch his. “Shhh…it’s okay… I’ll take the nightmares away…it’s okay…slow down, take a deep breath…” And just like that, magically, he forgets his dream, forgets what has tormented him so much. He can finally catch his breath and relax in relative safety. Harry’s still murmuring: “It’s all right…it’s all right…” But suddenly tears flood his eyes and they just won’t stop… he tries his damnedest to suppress the sobs, not wanting anyone to find him like this. But in the dark, with Harry, he can cry, he’s allowed to cry. When he looks up, however, Harry’s gone.

He fumbles for the few coins he hid under the thin mattress and almost jumps down the bunk bed ladder. He runs, he runs and runs, not caring if his footsteps would wake anyone. The door’s locked so he jumps out the window, falling hard on the concrete, but he gets up as fast as he can, and squeezes himself through small hole in the walls of the orphanage. The soles of his bare feet start to hurt from abrasion, but he doesn’t care. He runs for the nearest payphone, Harry said he could hear him…

EMPATHY – A home he can never go back to…

It’s lunch break. Kim’s still at his workstation writing up a case report, sifting through and reorganizing the information from his notes. After so many years of practice, the whole thing comes no harder than breathing. He hears other detectives chatting in the other corner of the office, and suddenly someone brings up Jamrock’s *Bloody Murder Station*. Kim can’t help but freeze, but forces himself to go on writing. It’s been two years. Just another home he left behind, he shouldn’t care anymore, if he still wants to get on with his life…so he pushes on, not allowing himself to take a break or take his report to some other place, straining to stare at the paper. Words begin to jam in his brain, but he has to go on. He has to go on…

ESPRIT DE CORPS – Another loss after countless others…

The last time Kim and Dom go on stakeout together—the first time—the car’s dead silent. Kim’s the only one comfortable with the quiet. The familiarity, the understanding formed and perfected over the months, now survives only in him. Dom has no such luck. After a while he finally speaks awkwardly. “Kim, I think we should clear the air…the past is the past. No need for it to affect our partnership, yeah?” Kim tries not to think of Dom’s wife and daughter, of the unborn son he would never see, of the fact that when Dom died, he hadn’t even dared to try to turn things around—not only because experience had taught him to see deaths as faits accomplis, but also because he was afraid of the possibility that Dom’s death would end up being of Kim’s own making…

VOLITION – Again, and again, and again…

Kim’s clumsy attempts to fight back are ultimately no match for the many punches and kicks thrown at him. Someone kicks his legs out from under him. The second he falls to the ground, his face is immediately stomped on, hard, and kicks rain down without mercy. He can only curl up to protect his vital organs. On top of physical pain, he’s drowning in despair: he just can’t see any hope left. He used to be able to defend himself, but he gradually forgot how to do it. He’s forgetting every bloody thing, it seems. His fucking brain is like a sieve holding water, all his skills and memories beginning to flee with abandon…

VOLITION [Legendary: Failure] – Nothing happens except more memories flashing by. You’re doing nothing but wallow in this mind-grating pain. Besides, it doesn’t feel right: you’re crossing lines. One of the most important things you’ve learned over the years, is that there are boundaries with him that should never be crossed, like stealing peeks at your future, his future…Would he really consent to exposing everything he’s experienced to your prying eyes? Isn’t that an intrusion?

LOGIC [Challenging: Success] – Frankly, even if you don’t actively seek out his memories, sooner or later you will witness them all. Here in the pale, it’s the only certainty that remains. Neither you nor he will have a choice in this. At least going the way you are now, you might even actually achieve something and get to him sooner.

SUGGESTION – Besides, fuck it, you’re dead, man. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

DRAMA [Formidable: Success] – And speaking of what he probably doesn’t want you to know: it’s actually the key of piecing him together. What he is, the entirety of it, is not just what he presents to you: it’s also what he hides from you, even right beneath the surface of your shared memories…

Kim picks up the phone. It’s Harry, calling from Martinaise, saying a bunch of this and that before finally getting to the point: Kim didn’t answer when he called earlier, and twice. Kim tells him he went to the Precinct garage. What he doesn’t say is that he couldn’t even concentrate on the maintenance work, so barely twenty minutes in he left and bought some bottles of pilsners and came home to drink himself blind. He gets why Harry likes alcohol: everything blends into a soft, dull blur when you’re drunk, even the pain. Harry hesitates for a long moment before asking: “Are you okay?” “Sure,” Kim says, doing his best to make it clear with his tone that he doesn’t want to talk about what happened this morning, what it means for Harry to find out about his *condition*…For fuck’s sake, use those goddamn skills of yours for once and give me a break. He stares at the empty bottles. He’ll have to go down and throw it away later: he can’t let Harry see all this when he gets home, not when he’s tried so hard to stop drinking and done so well… A nameless anger rises up, and the urge to just smash the bottles one by one. Why, why should he have to deal with Harry on top of everything else? Doesn’t he have it hard enough yet? But he doesn’t smash them anyhow. After all, he would be the one to clean up the pieces if he did…

…

Kim leans back on the pinball machine, hooking up one leg, boot heel riding the lower ridge on its side. His leather trousers are squeezing him tight to the point of annoyance, the dizzying heat brought by alcohol and drugs rushing up to his temples. Fuck it. He doesn’t care anymore. He reaches to hook his finger around the belt of the man in front of him, the other man scrambling to brace himself before falling right between his legs. Hot body odour mixed with the heavy, smoky scent of cheap cologne floods out his senses. Not bad, Kim thinks, his lower lip inching closer, not touching just yet, but getting infinitely closer, hovering, up the man’s chin to the corner of his lips, then to his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin through the air, while slipping his knee in to rub teasingly at the man’s crotch, his manner not sparing in the slightest, determined to ignite that obvious eagerness into a blaze. Since undercover work gives him this much leeway, might as well have some fun while he’s at it. Blurred faces, firm bodies, simple carnal pleasures, he can just lose himself for a while…

…

Kim watches Dom set two glasses on the table, one in front of each of them, and excitedly pour the drink. Mezcal. Isn’t that similar to tequila? Something indefinable wells up inside him as he tries to fight off the siren calls of old memories. “I’ve only got salt here. No limes,” Kim says, making to get up, “but I can go get some—” Dom immediately grabs his arm to stop him. “No, no, *cariño*, this is not tequila. This here, this is *mezcal*, original Villalobos style, shipped all the way through the pale from Mesque…*no es como lo de las discotecas*. It’s a sipping drink. Something to savour…” He hooks his arm around Kim’s neck, more Mesque slipping into his speech aside from his usual term of endearment. Kim’s always liked it, the rhythmic syllables wrapped in the softness of his voice and tone, but this time…Kim understands that by *discoteca* he probably means nightclub or something, but that doesn’t help dispel the association it evokes. Dom clearly mistakes his reaction for misgivings about the liquor. “Hey, just try it first. I think you’ll like it,” he lifts his glass for a sip. Kim does his best to dispel thoughts of the past and teases, “Oh, will I?” That said, he hooks his fingers into Dom’s collar and kisses the aroma off his lips…

…

…Countless memories…

Kim—

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] – Wait, this time’s different.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) – This time you’re actually looking *at* him.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Easy: Success] – Kim sits half-slumped on the couch. A young man’s there beside him, blinking slowly at Kim, a dazed smile on his face. A cloud of smoke floats in the air, a glowing trail hidden within connecting their lips.

PERCEPTION (SMELL) [Challenging: Success] – Despite there being an invisible barrier damping everything, you can still recognize the *smell*. You don’t even need to look twice at them to know they’re *high*.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] – You’re no stranger to that feeling either…

LOGIC [Easy: Success] – Wait, an old acquaintance…Does this mean you have a *body*?

YOU – You look down at your hands, make a fist and then unclench it.

PERCEPTION (TOUCH) [Challenging: Success] – You’ve got a bit of feeling there, but it’s only noticeable if you concentrate. You reach out and press your fingers against the wall, which is the closest thing to you. A subtle roughness glides past your fingertips. You try to chase that sensation and apply more pressure—

ENDURANCE [Legendary: Failure] – —and you fingers go straight through the wall. You’re incorporeal, so it seems.

YOU – You sigh and look up to find Kim staring at you.

KIM KITSURAGI – His hand stops midair, the hemp roll never reaching his lips. He blinks at you, rubs his eyes, and finds that you’re still there. Seems that the sight of you is enough to sober him up. Frowning, he turns away in annoyance, his gaze shifting to the side, as he exhales with restraint.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] – As if not wanting to look at you for a second longer.

COMPOSURE [Heroic: Failure] – Disgust?

EMPATHY – By the looks of him, this doesn’t seem like the first time either.

LOGIC [Easy: Success] – He has seen you before. Like *this*.

EMPATHY [Legendary: Success] – Probably *too many times*.

KIM KITSURAGI – He rubs his face tiredly. “Fuck, enough already…” He slowly sits up, sticks the roll back into the young man’s mouth and promptly says: “Thanks for the hospitality,” and not a word more as he gets up. His friend grunts in question, but just lets Kim snatch away the jacket and leave. Apparently he’s used to Kim being like this.

YOU – “Kim!” You call out his name and go after him, but moving takes so much effort, you’re like a weightless leaf fighting against the wind. Occasionally you drift a great distance ahead, but more often you’re stuck, unable to move. Fortunately you’re still not too far behind him. “Kim! Can you hear me?”

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Heroic: Success] – His slightly wobbly footsteps come to a halt as his shoulders tighten.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] – He heard you.

KIM KITSURAGI – But no matter how hard you chase him, no matter how you scream yourself hoarse, he doesn’t look back at you, not even once, until his figure fades before your eyes. The nameless street, the faceless pedestrians, all falling apart as he dissipates.

YOU – Is that it?

LOGIC [Medium: Success] – Impossible. All signs indicate the opposite.

YOU – But…

VOLITION – Maybe we just need to try harder…

YOU – But…he doesn’t seem to want me there at all.

DRAMA [Easy: Success] – I’m afraid that’s true, sire.

COMPOSURE [Legendary: Failure] – …yeah, it certainly looks that way…

EMPATHY [Impossible: Success] – What one *wants* and what one *needs* are two different things.

YOU – …

YOU – Does he really need me, though? He moved on. He gets on with his life. Everyone does.

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] – You never did. You haven’t for a moment come out of the ruins he’s left.

VOLITION – Going back to the RCM and making a last, pointless stand against the Coalition was just you trying to hold on to something, wanting to believe that there was still some value left in what remained of you, even if it was ultimately all in vain. You always knew how it would end. It could even be said that *this* is what you have been waiting for all along.

INLAND EMPIRE – The hope of meeting him again in the abyss.

EMPATHY [Impossible: Success] – Who’s moving on? Who’s kidding whom?

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Success] – Nothing can cut the ties that bind you together.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] – So you have no choice. You’ll always be following him, wherever he goes.

VOLITION – And so you drift through a million broken memories, searching for any trace of him, any wisp of smoke that glows in the desolation. At first, with your intangible fingers weaving through the thinness of pale, trying to get close to the faint glimmer of his presence, you’re still like tiny floating algae attempting to go against the waves, yet slowly it gets easier and easier…

…He puts away the latest full notebook, placing it in order with the rest…He sets a mug of hot coffee down in front of Dom…He fills out the application form for the police academy and stares at it for a long time…He looks ahead and grits his teeth as he endures yet another slight from his boss…He grooves to the drumbeat, grinding against his lover of the day in the dim light of the dancefloor…He’s pushed to the back of the line by some older kid…He sneaks the Precinct’s motor carriage out for a drive down the highway near the Greater Revachol Industrial Harbour…He chews on his pencil, trying to figure out how to deal with the previous day’s exam from his notes…

VOLITION – Gets easier with practice, huh?

INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] – No. You are but a flying insect out of its depth, stupid enough to dive into a dense fog. As condensation gathers on the weak membrane of your wings, you’re pulled down by the weight of memory, endlessly falling…

…He struggles desperately as the cursing orphanage caretaker half-tugs, and half-carries him back…

KIM KITSURAGI – He…you can’t tell how old he is. You never quite managed to imagine what he would look like as child: apparently he never kept any photos, and this is the first time you see him so young for real. A huge, washed-out shirt is nearly swallowing his skinny little body, and overly big glasses dangerously balances on the bridge of his nose, their frames taped and patched, with a crack across one lens. He stares at you for a moment, then looks back down at the old book in his hand. You look closer; it’s a copy of An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Flying Machines, quite frayed at the edges and falling apart.

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] – There is a palpable sense of resentment in the air.

YOU – “…Kim?”

KIM KITSURAGI – He keeps his eyes down and refuses to look at you. It takes a while before he finally whispers, “You disappeared.”

YOU – …What?

LOGIC [Medium: Success] – Obviously talking about something that hasn’t happened for you yet.

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] – Now it’s your turn to experience the complications he faces day in and day out. Not quite the same, but just about as hard.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] – But in any case, there’s only one thing for you to say.

YOU – “…I’m sorry.”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Whatever. I don’t need you anyway.” He mumbles as his fingers trace the black and white illustrations. “You never stay.”

YOU – You feel like you have to explain. “I…I didn’t mean for it to happen…”

PERCEPTION (Hearing) [Formidable: Success] – You hear very faint sniffles. Barely audible even in the silence.

KIM KITSURAGI – “You promised. But you still left me…” This time it’s an unmistakable sob that cracks his tiny voice.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Legendary: Failure] – Also stabbing into your throat, twisting and churning.

YOU – “I’m sorry…” you repeat. You don’t know what else you can say. You scramble to move closer to him, to hug his tiny body into your arms, almost getting the position right, when your fingers simply go through his arm like they’re nothing.

KIM KITSURAGI – He looks down at where your hand fades into his arm and silently reaches out, as if trying to touch your hand, but just like that, he drifts away like smoke before your eyes…

…

PERCEPTION (TOUCH) [Trivial: Success] – There is something pressed against the back of your hand, solid and warm. From there, everything falls in place, gaining shape and boundaries—there’s a weight against your chest and shoulders, too. It’s him, there in your arms, resting his head on your shoulder, his back against your chest, his hand over yours.

YOU – By instinct, you tighten your arms and turn to nuzzle his ear. “Kim…?”

LOGIC – What is this? A flashback? How is it that you get to touch him?

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] – This is his dream.

KIM KITSURAGI – For a moment he doesn’t respond, almost motionless.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] – Remember the last time you held him like that? He felt heavier than ever before. Only death could make him fully relax every muscle and lie carefree in your embrace.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Impossible: Success] – The final, ultimate trust he put in you.

VOLITION [Legendary: Success] – Don’t think about that now.

KIM KITSURAGI – At least right now, you can still feel the slight rise and fall of his belly against your hand as he breathes. With each heave, your hand—and his hand on top of yours—drifts like a buoy floating up and down in the waves, a sign that, at least for the moment, he is not yet engulfed by the boundless sea of death, not yet taken away from you, and you can still hold him. Warm. Alive.

VOLITION – Wouldn’t it be good if it can stay like this? You wouldn’t mind. Ever.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] – He feels the same.

YOU – But…

HALF LIGHT [Legendary: Success] – If things were that simple, there wouldn’t be such sadness in him, thick and palpable, seeping through his thin back into your chest. Your lungs stiffen with it, uneasy breathing further fueling the subtle fear.

KIM KITSURAGI – At last, he squeezes your hand and starts straightening up, taking his weight away from you.

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] – Finally made up his mind.

KIM KITSURAGI – “This has to stop.”

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] – You’re not surprised.

COMPOSURE [Heroic: Failure] – But that won’t stop you from pleading…

YOU – “Kim…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He turns around in your arms, reaching up to cup your face, leaning his forehead against yours, eyes closed. His head tilts in slightly, your noses brushing, it’s as if his lips are already seeking yours before he even knows it. But he doesn’t let them. He stops right there, self-restraint steering him off that path, as he murmurs to himself, “This has to stop…This has to stop…”

YOU – “No, Kim, there might be hope yet, listen to me—”

KIM KITSURAGI – He takes a deep breath and delivers his final verdict. “This has to stop,” he says, slow and clear, then pushes you off with force and turns away.

YOU – “No, Kim, wait—”

KIM KITSURAGI – You attempt to chase after him, but his frame fades into nothingness…

…

…and then reappears. And it goes on and on. He flickers in and out of existence before your eyes, walking down countless streets, turning at countless corners, there for a moment and gone for the next, innumerable fragments of déjà vu clashing together and forming a never-ending corridor. You chase after him, a weightless ghost calling out to him, wading through one moment after another…

And another, and another, and another…

…

YOU – “Kim!”

KIM KITSURAGI – He slows down at that. A slight, subconscious turn of his head—

“— I think all of us at some point imagine what our lives might have been, had we been something else. And then we feel trapped by the names we’ve been given, as symbols of the intentions and expectations of others…” He takes a long, pensive drag of his cigarette. “Even if I were to change my name now, upon hearing any syllable that sounds like *Kim* in the street, I’d turn to see who was calling me—”

—but quickly twists back as if nothing happened and walks on, farther away.

Farther away…

YOU – “KIM!!!” You grow hoarse, squeezing non-existent air all out of your non-existent lungs. “Wait, listen—”

…

KIM KITSURAGI – His long, thin, shimmering form suddenly settles. There’s an old, ill-fitting jacket draped loosely over his body; a cheap, threadbare backpack slung over his thin shoulder. He slows, sighs, then drops his head again and continues walking.

YOU – “Kim! Wait…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He flinches. “Can you keep it down?” He twists around and hisses. “You’re not usually this loud…”

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] – Only now do you get a good look at him. A teenage him looks unfamiliar, the frame of his glasses wrapped in tape, short hair no longer carefully groomed. You do recognize his features and that quiet, weary but stoic air he always has with him. But despite the obvious youth of his face, he looks far more haggard, face pallid and gaunt, cheekbones jutting out, dark circles under his sunken eyes…

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] – Not only that. There’s something about him…something raw, like the pink flesh that’s exposed after the skin gets torn off. Like his worn backpack, held together with little more than a few thin threads.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Formidable: Failure] – If it hurts this much just looking at him, you can only imagine how much worse it would actually feel in his shoes…

VOLITION [Legendary: Failure] – “Oh, Kim…” You choke out. You didn’t even know you could cry in this state, but it really feels like tears that’s burning your eyes. You reach out, wanting to hold him, but unsurprisingly, your arms fall short. “What happened to you…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He stands still, not looking up, but it’s like something in him suddenly cracked. He looks so, so tired. He takes a deep breath and opens his mouth as if to speak, but nothing comes out. He exhales, takes another deep breath and finally grits out: “This is not the time.”

YOU – What? So he’s telling you to wait for—

A CRUDE VOICE – “Hey! Talking to the air again, bino?”

ENDURANCE [Impossible: Failure] – Just like that, a tall form suddenly bursts through you and slams hard into Kim’s shoulder. Kim stumbles and struggles to stay on his feet, but gets tripped by a foot that appears under him out of nowhere. Your balance appears to be gone with his, everything goes into a spinning blur as you attempt to get between Kim and the attackers, only to be pierced by fists and kicks…

YOU – “No!! Kim!!!” You scream in vain…

…

PRECINCT LOCKER ROOM – Suddenly it goes still. You find yourself somewhere completely different, standing on one side of a bench, the remnants of your screams echoing in the small space.

YOU – What? I have to go back. Kim is…

KIM KITSURAGI – …safe and well in front of you. There’s a slight pause to his movements. He blinks, then looks down and continues to gather his things, showing no signs otherwise of noting your presence at all.

LOGIC [Easy: Medium] – Whatever you witnessed, happened, or will happen, in a very different time and space. Apparently when and where you can reach him is far beyond your control…

ENDURANCE – Besides, even if you do manage to go back, what can you do?

VOLITION [Legendary: Failure] – Nothing.

PERCEPTION – Everything around you starts blurring out of focus.

VOLITION [Formidable: Success] – Concentrate. It’s like he said, you still have the moment. You try to ground yourself, straining to fill the vessel of existence.

YOU – You have to get his attention, but what you’ve just seen has taught you to be a little wiser, so you look to make sure no one is around before you speak: “Kim? Kim, we need to talk.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He ignores you, leans down to fold up his uniform jacket and puts it in his satchel. His locker is down below, in the corner when two cabinets meet. An awkward spot, the insides difficult to reach unless one crouches and squeezes themselves in.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] – Reserved for not just newbies, but those at the very bottom of the food chain. This might be when he first joined the RCM, that means he’s in his early twenties, but then again, he always looks young for his age…

YOU – “Please, listen to me. I know you hear me…”

KIM KITSURAGI – With a long, tired sigh, he picks up his satchel and turns away to leave. You struggle to keep up with him—you’re better at moving now, at least—and find him walking towards the storage room. He looks around to check if there is anyone, then swiftly sneaks in and shuts the door, not caring whether you can keep up or not.

SAVOIR FAIRE [Trivial: Success] – But you go through the door that shuts unceremoniously before you.

KIM KITSURAGI – He leans back against the shelf, arms crossed, looks down and whispers to himself, “Hurry up and get it over with.”

SUGGESTION [Medium: Failure] – He’s annoyed. You feel like you should put some distance between you: never corner a distraught beast. But there’s not much room in the cramped cubicle, even if you can go through objects. You don’t want to be talking to him with your head sliced in halves by the shelf.

KIM KITSURAGI – “So?” He asks, exasperated, still not looking up.

YOU – “Kim, I…”

RHETORIC [Formidable: Failure] – After this much struggle to get his attention, you realize that you don’t really know what to say. *Hey, I’m the future Harry. I’m dead. I’ve been looking for you in the pale*? And then what? What do you do?

SUGGESTION [Legendary: Failure] – What can you give him? Your company, which is infrequent and unstable at best? Right now that seems to be the last thing he wants. Reunion in the afterlife? How long until that happens? For him it has to be, what, another twenty years or so?

KIM KITSURAGI – He seems to have lost his patience, and rubs his forehead hard. “I knew it,” he murmurs with a sneer as he looks up at the ceiling, “I must be crazy, talking to a hallucination…”

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] – If he doesn’t even know you’re real, it’s natural to get agitated. Anyone normal would start to doubt their sanity, let alone someone who values self-command as much as he does. That’s why he’s so testy: he thinks it’s just his own brain glitching.

YOU – “No, Kim, it’s me, I’m real! I—”

KIM KITSURAGI – He closes his eyes and interrupts you. “Of course you’d say that.”

REACTION SPEED – What would it take to prove it?

LOGIC [Medium: Success] – It can’t be what he already knows. By his logic, what he knows himself, the hallucination created by his brain must know, too.

YOU – “Revachol was nuked…We weren’t able to stop them. Right after the explosion—I think I must have died—I found myself—”

KIM KITSURAGI – His eyes remain closed as he shakes his head, as if trying to drive something out of his head.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] – That’s not enough. After all, it’s an easy guess—for years you hid the worries poorly, so he had always known, somehow, that the city you both loved so much would one day perish in flames.

YOU – “Jean…” heavy, bitter tears clog up your throat. You close your eyes and try to calm down, then clears your throat. “Jean died before that. The Coalition suppressed the revolt by bombing from Martinaise all the way to the outskirts of Jamrock. He was there, with our rebellion forces…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He pauses, drawn into your grief. He looks at you for a moment, and quickly drops his eyes again. “Ah…” He seems to be contemplating what to say, unsure if he should speak at all.

EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] – He’s beginning to think he can’t make this up on his own, but still isn’t entirely convinced—and in turn, he can’t help but feel guilty for the doubt. This buys you a little time. You need something that can shake him more.

VOLITION [Legendary: failure] – What? Wasn’t that enough??

RHETORIC – What else can there be??

EMPATHY – It’s like you’re back to the start, back when you had to go out of your way to pry everything out of him: the struggles he faced, the pain he refused to talk about, what he truly thought, everything. The truth is, you’ve always had to pry it out of him, it’s just that things become easier over time, as you get to know him like the back of your hand, as you grow into an expert at guessing what he thinks, and as his defences weaken more and more. But you’ve always had to make an effort to find a way in, and he rarely just gives in, turning his back to your open arms…

INLAND EMPIRE [Legendary: Success] – Remember? He never did look back in the end.

YOU – “Your corpse wouldn’t talk to me.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He frowns, finally meeting your eyes. “I…what?”

YOU – “The morning after you…died, I lay there, holding you, for about two hours.” Your voice starts to shake.

KIM KITSURAGI – He freezes.

YOU – “It almost felt like you were getting warm again…” You choke. You’ve never told anyone about this. It should be just between you and him, and he was gone, he left you. Even his remains were quiet, refusing to answer your tearful whispers as you wept, devastated. The soul had departed its place of origin, taking away everything you had that mattered, leaving in its place only grief heavy and thick as tar, stagnant and unflowing. Until now. There he is again, back before you, returned to you…

PAIN THRESHOLD [Impossible: Failure] – “…After washing you clean, when I was dressing you, your joints were all locked up, I didn’t dare force them to give, afraid it might hurt you, even though you…” wouldn’t feel me anymore. The sob clogs up your chest, leaving a dull pain in your diaphragm as you struggle to breathe. How is this even possible? You don’t breathe anymore, you don’t even have a fucking body anymore, so why does it still hurt this much? “…I chose the orange jacket. It’s what you wore the last time we went out together, you were waiting for me, wearing that jacket, looking back at me from the doorway. This time, once you’re gone, you wouldn’t come back ever again…If you could, would you have looked back?—”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Stop.” He interrupts you, voice rough, and turns his eyes away from you.

EMPATHY [Heroic: Success] – You know he can’t afford to look back. It’s no good clinging to the past, he can’t afford to dwell on it. That’s why he was the first to turn away when you said goodbye, why he would push you away and close the door between you. And you know it.

YOU – But if he could, would he look back at me? Would he choose *me*?

KIM KITSURAGI – He’s silent for a long time before he speaks again: “If you’re real…then what I saw before, was it all you, too?”

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] – It’s always been you.

YOU – “I think so. Possibly.” You don’t want to be too conclusive: after all, you don’t exactly know for sure. “Some of it hasn’t happened for me yet, but I’ve seen you in reality and in dreams…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He immediately turns and stares at you intently. “In dreams too?”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Failure] – Why is that his main concern?

YOU – In any case, you answer frankly, “Yeah, I believe so.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He averts his eyes and lowers his head. “I think I…” he frowns, his downcast gaze drifting away. “I think I said something…”

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] – Guilt. He doesn’t remember it very well, but enough to know what happened.

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] – Bad things.

LOGIC [Easy: Success] – It’s just that you still haven’t lived it yet.

KIM KITSURAGI – “None of this matters,” he whispers, then, tone hardening as if determined, he repeats: “It doesn’t matter.” Then he lifts his satchel and makes to leave.

AUTHORITY [Challenging: Failure] – Leaving absolutely no room for argument.

KIM KITSURAGI – “I suggest you find a less…” He hesitates for a moment.

EMPATHY [Legendary: Success] – *Cruel*, he wants to say *cruel*, but he swallows it back.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Impossible: Success] – It’s hard to accuse you of cruelty when he feels he’s also somewhat cruel himself.

KIM KITSURAGI – “…*harmful* way to pass your time.” He stands still for a moment and sighs.

YOU – “Kim…”

VISUAL CALCULUS [Challenging: Success] – There it is, the tiny twist of his head, the slight tensing of his muscles, tells that show he’s about to turn back. Though whether he really does it or not, you have no way of knowing, as everything around him begins to shake and fall apart once more…

…

VOLITION [Legendary: Failure] – And even if he does turn around, what difference would it make? You feel like you’ve cut your chest open and ripped out your heart and lungs, for nothing more than a tiny speck of compassion from him.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Success] – In the old days, it would have been enough. It would have fueled you to the end of the world. But now it feels different – it’s like you’re the only one left on a deserted battlefield, fighting in vain, only to discover that everything you fought for, the people you fought with, have long since abandoned you without a word.

VOLITION [Godly: Failure] – Like spilling blood in vain at a statue that refuses to be moved. Like he’s already sick of everything about you.

YOU – So what’s the point of all this? It’s better to cease to exist, to return to the blissful, blurry chaos, to let all the pain dissolve into nothingness…

…He curls up and squeezes his eyes shut, frantically hoping not to wake up next day…

YOU – Don’t. Please stop…let me back into the nothingness…

…He puts on his glasses but feels too weak to get up, so he drops his arms again, staring at the ceiling in the darkness. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale…

YOU – Why? Why can’t I just disappear?

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] – Can’t do that anymore. Now you’ve become too heavy, cloaked in all these memories of him, tiny fragments of his soul: they give you mass like a curse. More than that, every scrap of reality he’s experienced begins to recognize you, like asteroids being pulled into orbit by a madly growing celestial body, drawn to you, clinging to you particle by particle, dragging your increasingly dense existence into the maelstrom of pale…

…One careless stroke and the razors leaves a small cut on the side of his jaw. He presses against it, only squeezing out more blood. The scarlet runs down his fingertips, dissolving into the water gathered in his palm, now washed thin, translucent, he can see the lines and scars underneath…

YOU – You shouldn’t have hung on this tight to him in the first place, or you wouldn’t have ended up like this. He would live his life on his own terms. He doesn’t need you to get involved, or for you to *save him*—not to mention you can’t even do that. It’s just self-inflicted, pointless suffering…

VOLITION [Medium: Failure] – Except how can you stay indifferent, whenever you get glimpses of him? You’ve already domesticated yourself to fit him, being needed by him has become your greatest need. How can you keep away when there’s even the slightest chance of becoming whole again…?

…He stares at the razor in his hand as he rubs the tiny cut on his jaw, suddenly wanting to press the blade against his throat, the terrible desire instantly freezing him, pulling him into a wooden trance of mingled fear and fascination—

—It feels like your soul is half separated from your body. Your body belatedly picks up the orders from your brain as you find yourself raising your hand that’s holding the razor, as if possessed, but you’re actually wide awake. A slight tingle runs through you, giving you a distant thrill. You look up into the mirror, at your hand moving closer to its destination, stable as they come…

—He sees not himself. It’s not even his bathroom, his mirror. He sees Harry with a razor to his neck, his bloodshot green eyes staring straight at him from the mirror, his face bloated and blotchy from alcohol, those painfully frozen muscles twisting into the frantic *Expression*. Kim blinks hard and squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them again, he’s back in his own bathroom, looking at his own mirror, and his own reflection in it, dark brown irises staring back at him through glasses with a bit of shaving foam on the frame. Around him are the same beige tiles, but standing behind him is—

YOU – —It’s as if you’re driven out of your body, instantly moving half a metre back, looking at Kim’s reflection straight in the eyes, but at the same time, you’re also looking at yourself through Kim’s eyes, an old, sad man, blurry at the edges…

PAIN THRESHOLD [Godly: Failure] – The buzzing pain instantly grows to a violent intensity. You’re reminded of the pain you felt under the influence of Ruby’s Pale Latitude Compressor, only this is dozens of times as strong, drowning out everything else, cutting sharply through your being, like the ungodly screech of a microphone and a stereo in an infinite feedback loop…

KIM KITSURAGI – He’s feeling it too, body shivering violently, dropping his razor. The blade falls, cutting across his palm, scarlet blood gushing from the wound…

…He cuts down along the line of his palm, bit by bit. The easily hidden cut reminds him of his existence each time he clenches his fist. The blade is duller than he expected, and it takes more force to slice through skin and flesh. His palm instantly flinches under the pain, but he forces it to lay flat against his lap. With nowhere to hide, it trembles slightly, but this pain is good. When the lethargy intertwined with a faint, aching mist invades his lungs and joints, the sharp, clear pain feels like an anchor, and an outlet…

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] – You remember that his palm lines are indeed darker and deeper than normal…

VOLITION [Heroic: Failure] – No, Kim…

LOGIC [Medium: Success] – You also remember that the rest of the scars on his body are relatively randomly located, mostly from accidents—at least from what you can tell. He doesn’t usually stray too far from his palms.

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] – He doesn’t want others to notice—not that anyone would, except himself. When people already see him as a freak, they wouldn’t really care if he’s more eccentric or less. It’s just a matter of pride.

PAIN THRESHOLD – Except for that one time…

…He stares numbly at the tip of the knife as he suddenly drives it down a few inches, hanging above his wrist, but still feels nothing. No excitement or fear. If he wants to make it work, should he cut vertically instead of horizontally? He hears that vertical wounds make it harder to stop the bleeding. How deep should it be? He can’t remember: these days he seems to remember less and less. Maybe there’s a better chance if he tries the side of the neck, or the thigh? Should he do that? Supposedly, he’s basically unable to die, isn’t he, given that he would still wake up in the past the very next day? Should he test it? Theoretically he died once, and he simply came back. But back then he still had—

VOLITION [Impossible: Failure] – No, no, no, no, no—

YOU – “KIM!!! NO!!!”

KIM KITSURAGI – He suddenly appears in front of you, curled up against the tile walls of an empty communal shower. He looks very young, maybe thirteen or fourteen. At the sound of your voice, his shoulders tighten, but he keeps his eyes down, not lowering the knife in his hand.

LOGIC [Trivial: Success] – He won’t do it. He won’t. You have his future draped over your shoulders and you know he will live on, long enough to meet you…long enough to die in your arms.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Failure] – But that doesn’t mean you can just stand by and watch…You can’t bear watching him hurt himself and not doing anything about it. You can’t bear the thought of him in pain.

YOU – You kneel in front of him and slowly move closer, stretching out your hand in an attempt to soothe him. “Kim, listen to me. Put the knife away.”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Why?” He says flatly, almost sounding *bored*. The coldness in his young face is unsettling.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] – He’s waiting for you to provoke him. Maybe a fight will break that numbness. He’d take anything.

VOLITION – He doesn’t really want to kill himself…You have to convince yourself that…he’s just…

EMPATHY – He’s just in too much pain. But then, how do you know what he wants? Who are you to decide for him?

COMPOSURE [Formidable: Failure] – You have to say something…

RHETORIC [Legendary: Failure] – “Think about it…There has to be something worth staying for, right?” Your words sound so pale that you almost flinch yourself.

KIM KITSURAGI – He raises an eyebrow at you. “Like what?”

EMPATHY – What can placate him? When he comforted you, he would say that the night is always darkest before the dawn. But that would surely sound like mockery to him. Things only get worse for him. He knows it, and you know it.

VOLITION [Legendary: Failure] – You want to say, *there’s me*. But that’s just too brazen; what can you give him? Nothing. You can’t even touch his hand.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Unsurprising.” He scoffs at your silence. “What do you know?”

YOU – “I know that you suffer…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He leans his head against the tiles. “Suffer?” He snorts, you can’t tell if it’s a sneer or a sob. “Suffering is nothing. The problem is suffering for *no reason*, and there being nothing to get my mind off it anymore.” He jumps to his feet and starts pacing. “I used to have a job, even if I was stuck at Juvenile Delinquency, at least it was enough to keep me busy. At least I was doing something *meaningful*. But now…I don’t even want to fight back anymore. I’m curious what they can do to me. Other than that, nothing will ever happen to me again…”

“So tell me, what do I have left? I can’t keep anything…I never get to keep anything…” he murmurs.

VOLITION [Impossible: Failure] – …

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Impossible: Failure] – You follow him and try in vain to touch him, wanting to offer him even just the slightest bit of comfort—but you can’t. Your seemingly tangible fingers go right through his shoulder.

YOU – “You still have me…I’m always—”

KIM KITSURAGI – He turns back as swiftly as a viper suddenly on attack, and hurls the knife in his hand hard at you, the blade flying straight through your chest—

INLAND EMPIRE – Through the hole in your heart.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Medium: Success] – —the metal hits the tile wall with a crisp sound, followed by a clatter as it falls to the ground and spins halfway around—

KIM KITSURAGI – “—Fuck you!” He screams, “You’re not here…you’re not real…” He suddenly chokes, stumbles back, drops into a huddled heap against the wall and sobs, “You’re not here…”

PAIN THRESHOLD [Impossible: Failure] – If only you still had flesh for him to cut into—if only you could just let his knife pierce your heart and put an end to this agony. You’d rather he kill you than be so powerless in the face of him crying—have you ever seen him cry like that with your own eyes? His whole narrow body Is shaking, hitching with low sobs. You scramble your way to him but you can’t hold him, you can’t hold him…

…

…You feel like you’re pulled into hundreds and thousands of directions. There must have been hundreds and thousands of times when he needs you, but your incorporeal arms are too weak to reach him. You see him falling to the ground against the closed door in the dark. Staring into space after driving away from the block where you two once lived. Drowning his sorrows, helpless in the face of another broken family behind another tragic case. Dragging up his kicked and beaten body to collect his scattered things. Hugging himself on the narrow bunk bed. Sitting alone on a swing by the sea. Finding a breakthrough in the case and turning around, excited, only to find no one there…

…

KIM KITSURAGI – He bends down and sticks his head under the dashboard of the motor carriage, fiddling with something.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Challenging: Success] – The faint sounds appear to be electrical sparks…yes, definitely. A slightly louder pop, followed by the engine’s roar.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Trivial: Success] – Hotwiring. He’s stealing the MC.

KIM KITSURAGI – He straightens up sees you—not much older than the last time you saw him face to face, but this time he seems like a completely different person, as if he’s *coming to life*. Aside from his knowing look, your presence seems inconsequential to him. Without a moment’s hesitation, he switches to the second lever to change gears, and hits the accelerator as the carriage takes a sharp turn. The carriage nearly flies out of the parking lot. For a moment you thought you were going to be thrown out the window, but the thing about being a ghost is that the laws of physics no longer apply to you. There’s no mass and no inertia. So you stay firmly in the passenger seat, watching the scenery whirl outside the window until you turn onto the highway. He’s still speeding, occasionally glancing at the rearview mirror. Clearly no one noticed, nobody’s following him. His facial muscles gradually relax. There’s even a victorious little smile.

INTERFACING [Formidable: Success] – He wants to enjoy the last bit of thrill there could be, before his foggy brain forgets how it all works.

COMPOSURE [Formidable: Failure] – Apart from the sound of the engine, there is only an awkward silence in the car. You start to fidget and look around.

VOLITION [Godly: Failure] – With him, silence shouldn’t really bother you. But now it’s different…Nowadays you can’t tell if he wants you around anymore.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Challenging: Success] – The dashboard and interior look antique, yet still relatively new, which is quite difficult to get straight in your head. You look through the windshield and see the peculiar shape at the end of the wheel arch cover.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Legendary: Success] – Typical of LUM’s racing series in late ’20s. The feature is aesthetically pleasing but impractical. After research showed that the design didn’t fit the aerodynamics, LUM removed it in the subsequent series, but the increasing scarcity raised the collector’s price for the models. Which model is this? L’ouragan? Chasseur de tempête? Either way, you have to admit that Kim’s got taste. This MC even has a radio installed. It’s a lot bulkier than what you’re used to, but you’re comparing it to radios from twenty years later after all…

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Formidable: Success] – Without thought, you glide your fingers across the buttons on the radio one by one. Unexpectedly, one of them moves under your finger.

HITS FM – “I don’t want no other love, baby, it’s just you I’m thinking of…” old upbeat rock music plays, lyrics flowing in the singer’s playful tone.

KIM KITSURAGI – He winces. “Seriously?” He asks, but also with a touch of resigned amusement.

YOU – You turn to peek at his profile. The look on his face is so familiar, it almost brings tears to your eyes. For a moment you are back to the days when you were still together. That’s the look he got, whenever you dragged him into some dubious diner in the middle of a case, whenever he found the quirky things you sneaked in with the groceries, or whenever you heard some song on the radio while doing weekend chores and just started your superstar act, pretending the broom was a microphone. *Seriously, Harry?* He would say, then shake his head and sigh to hide a helpless smile. It still seems like yesterday, but also like a lifetime ago. Why has it come to this?

INLAND EMPIRE – Time happened, darling. It’s all because of time.

KIM KITSURAGI – He glances at you from the rearview mirror, then averts his gaze again.

HITS FM – “Don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He clears his throat and suddenly breaks the silence. “So, why do you keep following me around?” No hostility. Simply wanting to know why.

YOU – You know he doesn’t mean for it to sting, it’s just that everything you’ve got for an answer is so pitiful that it’s almost laughable. “I guess…I don’t have anywhere else to go.” It’s the honest truth. It started with you going out of your depths, seeing the traces he left and refusing to let go, and now you’re stuck like this.

KIM KITSURAGI – “And you choose to haunt me instead of…” He gestures with one hand. *Her*.

RHETORIC – Blunt to the point of rudeness. You seldom get that from him. Perhaps for him, after all this time and finally knowing each other in and out, there’s little need to beat around the bush with you anymore.

YOU – So why? “I don’t know. It’s just that…I just want an afterlife with you.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He pauses, seemingly at a loss for what to say. It takes him a while. “But you’re looking in the wrong place…I still have my life to live.”

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] – It’s not that he’s not tempted by the idea…actually it’s exactly the opposite. That’s why he—

KIM KITSURAGI – “You do understand, that this is more like torture for me, right?” He sighs.

EMPATHY – —shuns you like a plague. It isn’t fair to expect him to drop everything else and put all his hope in you, when you can’t even maintain a steady presence in his life. It tears him up even more when he’s willing to go along with you but can’t. He knows it, and so should you.

VOLITION [Formidable: Failure] – Unfortunately you set out on the wrong path, and there’s no turning back, neither for you nor for him. You’re entangled in his broken life and memories. You can’t get out of it, and neither can he.

YOU – “I’m sorry…I never thought this would happen.”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Typical.” He laughs bitterly.

YOU – “I just…I didn’t know…” you repeat, trying to defend yourself. “And after all our time together…twenty years, Kim, thousands of days, and I just thought it had to count for…”

KIM KITSURAGI – “7490.”

YOU – “…Sorry, what?”

KIM KITSURAGI – “7490 days. My time with you.”

HALF LIGHT [Easy: Success] – Just like the ever present countdown in the depths of your consciousness, there was one in his mind, too. You counted the days until the doom of Revachol and Elysium, and he counted the days until his personal doom.

LOGIC [Ease: Success] – Never say he doesn’t love you.

VOLITION [Godly: Failure] – Yet love in itself is not enough.

HITS FM – “Why should we be apart…”

KIM KITSURAGI – Before you can say anything, he clears his throat again and says: “Can you change the station?” He curls up the corner of his mouth. “Too bad there’s no Speedfreaks FM yet. I kind of miss it…”

INTERFACING [Formidable: Failure] – “I’ll try,” you say, leaning over to check the dialing knob, but everything around you quickly starts to vanish…

…

LOGIC [Easy: Success] – Clearly your connection to him is far from stable. It will never just take you where you want to go, or let you stay there as you please.

VOLITION – Maybe you just weren’t trying hard enough.

EMPATHY – But you can’t just think about yourself. It’s not always good for him to have you around, is it?

HALF LIGHT – Maybe it’s also up to him, at least partially, whether to let you through? Maybe…

YOU – Then…

…Before any thought takes shape, you are dragged back in again, drifting through memory after memory, tiny fragments clinging to your back. You see him, slowing down then hurrying away as he passes the corner of Voyager Road, standing in front of a gravestone, flexing his hand that went sore from recoil when he practices shooting alone, frustratedly trying to fix a mangled radio transceiver…

…There are times when you’re actually with him, too. Sometimes he acknowledges you, sometimes he doesn’t. He might know you’re real or he might not, but either way, it probably doesn’t make any real difference. You don’t always know if you should talk to him, but occasionally you’d point out to him details he’s overlooked at the crime scene, continue his whistled melody when he’s driving, or walk with him for a while when he’s left alone behind all those crowds of three or two…

KIM KITSURAGI – He opens his eyes in your arms, then immediately closes them and takes a deep breath, rolling over to sit on the corner of the bed. Arms wrapped around his head, he hunches over, the arch of his back a bitter curve. It’s been a long time since you were in his dreams—a long time since you were able to hold him like this. And still, he chooses to turn his back on you.

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] – Something’s wrong, though. And you can’t bear to just leave him like this, you have no choice.

YOU – “Kim? What’s wrong?”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Stop. I’d rather…” He shakes his head. “You only make it worse.”

YOU – You pull back your outstretched hand. You get his reasoning, but… “Why? Why won’t you let me help you?” Do I repel you this much?

KIM KITSURAGI – “It’s…That’s not the point. I just…” He looks at you wearily.

EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] – *Fuck it*, he thinks, *who else does he have?*

SUGGESTION [Heroic: Success] – And in all honesty, he does want to talk about it: deep down, he’s forever aching for that shoulder no longer there for him to lean on.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Okay. He—Dom—he said I never let him in.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] – You remember seeing him in Kim’s memories. Domingo, his former partner, nicknamed “Eyes”.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Formidable: Failure] – Jealousy pierces you from under the ribs. Even though you know there’d be someone else for him, it still hurts to hear him tell you out loud.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Challenging: Success] – But it’s no surprise. You’ve seen it. Besides, you can’t ask Kim to stay alone for over forty years…and to be honest, you even feel a little sympathy for the poor bastard. “Wonder what that feels like,” you tease dryly.

KIM KITSURAGI – “No…you don’t understand. He doesn’t even know my condition, and I can’t tell him anything, either. All this suffering…How can I impose it on him? Or on anyone, really? Sooner or later they all leave,” just like you. “There’s no point at all. Clinging won't help.” He looks to the side, his voice fading to a whisper. “…And that’s why he left, too.” He closes his eyes in pain.

Kim keeps his eyes down, not looking at Dom. Since the moment he asked Kim to sit down for a talk, with that sombre look on his face, Kim has guessed it would be a conversation like this. He knows what’s going to happen, but the process is no less torturous. He hears Dom’s bitter chuckle before he says, “You never let me in…I’ve always deluded myself, thinking that maybe in time you’d come to rely on me, and then you’d stop being so sad…but apparently I’m not good enough.” Kim wrings his fingers and whispers, “No…” It’s him who isn’t good enough. It’s all his fault. Dom hesitates before reaching over, gently prying apart his fingers under his own abuse. “It’s okay,” Dom sighs. “Your heart was never mine to keep, nor was it mine to break.” And with that he gets up and walks away, the unspoken words hanging in the air: though you already broke mine.

YOU – Were it me, I would never have left.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] – Of course you wouldn’t. You would have sunk with him, the two of you entangled and dragging each other down…this is the way you are. To *her*, as well as to *him*.

EMPATHY [Impossible: Success] – That’s where the problem is.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Challenging: Success] – On the other hand…you actually sympathize with this counterpart you’ve never met. You know what it’s like when Kim doesn’t allow people in, when he rejects you. Even if you know for certain that he would willingly die for you, you’re never sure if he would want to belong to you…

EMPATHY [Legendary: Success] – It’s not that he doesn’t want to… the thing is, he can’t. Not to anyone, regardless of how he wishes to. Especially when it comes to this man, his “Eyes”, he really, desperately wishes he could.

LOGIC – And people don’t just get what they want. Much less him.

EMPATHY – All he gets is you.

VOLITION [Legendary: Failure] – And you’re not enough.

YOU – “You love him.”

KIM KITSURAGI – “I…” He pauses, his face buried in his hands. “He’s a good man…you know? He still accepted me as his partner, after I went to the 57th, despite all this history between us. Simply because if he didn’t take me on, the brass would have just picked someone else there and put off my official promotion until god knows when, by the excuse of lack of vacancies, and he knew I’d always wanted to go to the Criminal Investigation…”

EMPATHY [Legendary: Success] – He could have loved him the way he deserves, he wanted to, so much…but he couldn’t. For him, the beginning is the end. It mustn’t have been long, probably just a few days, since they broke up, and Kim has to carry it all upon himself and continue to be with him, enduring the pain that he can’t tell anyone about. He holds it all back, hides it underneath and stubbornly goes it alone, consistently hurting himself as well as others.

YOU – You can’t help but reach out, wanting to soothe him. “It must be hard…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He slaps his hand away. “No need to pretend you care.”

VOLITION [Formidable: Failure] – What?

PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Failure] – Like a whip striking across your heart.

YOU – “I’m not pretending! I—”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Don’t say that you know how it feels,” he snaps. “You don’t—”

YOU – “I tried! —”

KIM KITSURAGI – “It’s hard enough as it is, and then you just have to get involved, don’t you—”

COMPOSURE [Formidable: Failure] – The simmering resentment finally blooms into anger, along with the frustration of being constantly shut out by him. “Do you think this is easy on me?” You bellow. “Every time I work so hard to get to you, only to be pushed away again and again, do you know how difficult it is to put up with? I just want a chance to be with you again, I just want—”

KIM KITSURAGI – He interrupts you with a sneer. “You, you, you. Sure enough, it’s all about you. So typical of you, Harry…”

YOU – “I’m just trying to help! I’m just trying to do what I can for you—”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Don’t even say you just want to help—you can’t. You don’t help anything. There’s nothing you can do. You’re not even here,” he snarls, “and no promise you make, no amount of comfort you think you’re trying to give me, is going to help. Because in the end it’s *me* who’s going to wake up from these dreams. It’s *me* who’s going to get through dozens of desolate years. You don’t understand…this is doing no good. Please don’t make it any harder than it has to be.” With that, he turns away.

YOU – “…So that’s what you think, huh? This is what I get.”

KIM KITSURAGI – “This is what you get for being presumptuous.” He crosses his arms tight against his chest, his fingers sinking deep into his elbows, his voice a solid wall of ice.

EMPATHY – Something’s not right…

COMPOSURE – It can’t just end like this…

YOU – “…But who else do you have? You haven’t even told *him*. Who else can understand you?”

EMPATHY [Impossible: Success] – Who else is there for him to take it out on?

YOU – “You can’t always bear the burden alone. All that I’ve done, the endeavour I made, I did it all because I don’t want you to be—” alone, Kim, don’t you get tired of it, being alone all the time? Don’t you miss what we had?

KIM KITSURAGI – He whirls around so fast as his thunderous pain descends deafeningly upon you. “Do you want to have me cry in gratitude? What more do you want? For me to say that you’re *the only one*? That there’s no life without you, that I’ll never be able love anyone else the way I love you? Is that what you want to hear?”

YOU – You’re at a loss for words.

RHETORIC [Heroic: Failure] – “I…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He just drives on. “Fine then, it’s all true. I admit it. You’re right, Harry. Though if I had any choice in it…I’d rather it wasn’t like this. Are you happy now? Can you just let me off? Can I be finally left in peace?”

PAIN THRESHOLD [Heroic: Failure] – If he had any choice…

VOLITION [Impossible: Failure] – He’d rather you weren’t ever in his life, wouldn’t he? He would never have chosen you.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Impossible: Success] – He doesn’t know for sure anymore.

YOU – You try for a long time before sounds finally come out your throat. You plead. “But you said, you said you would never leave me by choice.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He laughs bitterly, “But I’ve never had a choice, have I?”

EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] – What he’s saying finally sinks in. No matter how much he misses you, he doesn’t want you there anymore. Perhaps he never wanted you, you were just another yoke, another curse imposed on him by fate.

YOU – “You don’t want me anymore.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He stares down to one side, his expression softening for a moment, infinitely sad, as if in regret, and then squeezes his eyes shut, brows knit tightly together in pain, fighting something within himself. Finally, he looks up and meets your gaze.

DRAMA – Without even the slightest tremble.

KIM KITSURAGI – “I don’t want you anymore.”

YOU – Just like that, his cold, stony features begin to blur. Distorting. Fading. Emptiness floods in like water, gradually separating you, but his face is still firmly branded in your consciousness, looking down mercilessly as you keep sinking…

Sinking…

Sinking…

YOU – No. No. I don’t want to see his face anymore. Just make this stop. I’d take anything. Anything…

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] – Too late.

YOU – Anything…

…You stand frozen on the corner of Voyager and Main, watching her go, suitcase lagging behind her. In reality, you never did get the chance to kiss her one last time…

…Like so many mornings woken by the sunlight pouring through the curtains, like every time you say goodbye at the light rail station, like nights spent gazing at films cast on rough walls with her in your embrace, like rainy days without an umbrella when you drape your coat over both your heads and run home laughing with her half in your arms. You’d kiss her, kiss her, her hair, her forehead, her cheeks and, naturally, her lips, with the sweet scent of apricots, dry, or moistened with lip gloss, or wet with saliva, you’ve kissed them all…

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] – The curtain of death no longer overshadows the memories you lost to the pulsing tides of pale, and one by one they return with clarity to what is left of your soul.

VOLITION [Heroic: Failure] – And even the sweet moments are tainted by sorrow so thoroughly that they turn sour, bitter, all reminding you that the joy you had was but a thin, frail leaf that a mere gust of wind could sweep away from your hands that hold it so dear.

…just as you’ve kissed his collarbone, his chest, his wrists, his hair, his forehead, his cheeks, and naturally, his lips, warm and smiling, burning from lust and moaning, deathly cold and slightly open from the slackness of his jaw…

INLAND EMPIRE [Godly: Failure] – And now that you think of everything you shared, that has long become a part of you, turning out to be just a product of his resignment to fate, icy stabs of pain instantly pierce your bones, the ubiquitous memories a lethal poison that corrodes your soul.

You’ve always had your doubts. To be honest, you were never fully at ease until those final days. Even as his growing dependence on you agonizingly reminded you how the end was imminent, a secret part of you was also rejoicing that he was less and less likely to leave you out of his own will. You never knew for sure, until he died in your arms, that he’d be *yours* until the end.

EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] – Yet he never really had a choice, did he? You were something shoved down his throat. Even if he did love you, it must have haunted him like a curse, too. Come to think of it, were it not for the urgency of loss constantly eating away at him, or the glorified aura of nostalgia for the old days gone, he might not have loved you so deeply, for so long, or suffered so much…

VOLITION [Impossible: Failure] – And you can’t get rid of the excruciating thought anymore, stuck in a whirlpool of memories from which you can no longer withdraw.

INLAND EMPIRE [Godly: Success] – You will never be free of him, nor will he ever be free of you.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] – He must be feeling something similar…only it’s much harder on him. You have time on your side, while it works against him. Time has lost its meaning for you, you’re just a single point accumulating mass of memories, but for him it’s a long, tedious line with no hope at the end. He has ditched it all for survival, and even then, he hasn’t been able to escape your shadow completely.

And your presence only adds fuel to the fire.

VOLITION [Impossible: Failure] – With this realization, how can you live with yourself, with all this? You have made a terrible mistake in ignorance, and now you’re long past the point of no return. You can’t get out of this turmoil as everything you perceive turns completely unbearable, even the memories of the times when he still wanted you—did he ever really want you? He…

“I love you, you know that, don’t you?”

YOU – What? What is this?

VOLITION – He doesn’t often say that he loves you: barely, in fact, and you never ask that of him. You want to believe that you can feel it, and he has long since proved it by his actions…At least the longer you’ve been together, the more assured you are, and you’ve convinced yourself that you don’t need him to put it to words. After all, he’s not someone who wears his heart on his sleeve by nature. So even you forgot how much you really needed to hear it…

It’s still dark. There’s a slight chill from the track of tears running across Kim’s temples as he turns to look at the vague outline of Harry, who’s snoring slightly beside him. He feels the heavy, solid weight of Harry’s arm over his abdomen, and murmurs softly, “I love you, you know that, don’t you?” Harry grunts, half asleep, and hugs him closer, continuing to snore. Kim reaches out to wrap his arms around him as well. It would be such bliss to die in the arms of someone you love…though he must have more than used up his chances, having done that twice. Why can’t he just stay in this moment forever? It wouldn’t be so bad if he actually died back there, if he got to stay forever in that dream…

LOGIC [Heroic: Failure] – What dream? What…

YOU – You find yourself in a bed. Your bed, the one at the home you shared on Rossell Street. You spent hundreds of nights here alone, but right now…

KIM KITSURAGI – He’s lying on his side, your arms wrapped around his waist, his back warm against your chest. The morning light burrows through the seams between the fibres of the curtains’ fabric, kissing his silhouette. He stirs slightly and twists around in your arms, revealing a face lined with age, a familiar face you haven’t seen since forever. His eyes widen a little as he reaches up to caress your face. He draws you closer, taking you in, his eyes instantly filling up with tears, his hands pulling you into a violent kiss, familiar, fitting, like instinct. You toss and roll your aged bodies around and around, making love as recklessly and as fiercely as two teenagers, your limbs and his intertwined until there’s no telling where you end and where he begins. You hold him so close, any tighter and you’d be pressing him into your skin, your face buried against his chest. He cradles your neck and whispers, “I remember everything.”

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] – You know. You feel it even in your bones.

COMPOSURE [Legendary: Failure] – “I know…” you say, but your voice still cracks.

VOLITION [Formidable: Failure] – Because what he knows is still not *everything* just yet. Not for you. Would he still embrace you like this after the years have bittered him?

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Godly: Success] – There’s nowhere else he’d rather be.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] – A clarity afforded to him only by death. Right before he came here…

…Every bit of strength leaves him as agony strikes through his body. He’s ready for the ground to hit him, but the impact never comes. Harry catches him…He supposes Harry has dealt with the shooter…Harry’s calling his name, frantic with desperation, a sudden pressure to his abdomen triggering another explosion of pain. He groans and hears Harry’s choked voice: “Oh Kim, sorry, I’m so sorry… Stay with me… Kim! You hear me? Stay awake!” Kim struggles to do as he’s told, but everything gradually fades, even the pain. He’s becoming lighter and lighter…

HALF LIGHT [Easy: Success] – You never managed to forget however you tried. No matter how many years pass you’d still wake up in cold sweat from the same nightmare and search for Kim beside you, clean and warm, feeling for that steady thrum in his chest, for comfort. Only then could you even try to wipe your mind of the terror: Kim, who had just stopped breathing in your arms, lay bloodstained and lifeless, face weakly fallen to the side and eyes staring blankly at nothing, his glasses cracked and askew. His forehead, his slack jaw, his limp neck, all smeared with blood from your frantic efforts to feel for a pulse that wasn’t there and give him mouth-to-mouth. The bloody handprints you left on his chest, all from his own blood, so much blood, so much of it, still oozing out of the gaping wound in rhythm with your compressions crushing his chest, his flaccid limbs jerking and ribs cracking under your violent movements, blood gurgling and rattling in his throat and lungs. Clenched in a deeper fear, you fought the urge to vomit and forced your aching arms to keep pushing, because you couldn’t stop. He would die for real if you do…

…

YOU – Suddenly you are there again, tilting his head back to open his airway, pinching his nose and blowing air into his cold, dry lips.

KIM KITSURAGI – He gives a soft, weak cough beneath you.

YOU – You quickly get up and move away. “Kim?!” You call out his name, gently stroking up his hair and cheek. He chokes and coughs harder, turning his face into your hand and gasps with difficulty. “Shhh…Kim, it’s okay, help is on the way…” you continue to soothe him and wipe away the tears running free from his eyes. This is when you realize that this isn’t how you remember it. His face is clean, and so are your hands.

LOGIC [Formidable: Success] – So this is his dream, then.

KIM KITSURAGI – His eyes are wide and out of focus, straining to look in your direction as tears roll down his face. “Harry…” he’s shaking. You hold him tight—at least you still can, for now, so of course you must, how could you not? “Harry…it hurts…”

PAIN THRESHOLD [Legendary: Failure] – You’d rather take that pain all on yourself than see him like this. “I’m so sorry…it’s okay, I’m here, it’s going to be okay…”

KIM KITSURAGI – But suddenly he changes, his face instantly morphed into that of a preteen boy, covered in bruises, one eye purple and swollen shut. He falls, out of your arms and crumpling on the ground as he struggles to look at you. Countless punches and kicks rain down, penetrating you, and you are completely powerless as you try to shield him in vain. You turn to try and fight back to no avail, punching through smoke and seeing only a blur of faces, distant insults and jeers echoing all around you…

“Harry…” When you turn back again, you see a skinny little boy huddled up, almost curling into a ball and crying his heart out, his face hidden between thin arms littered with bruises old and new. All you can do is try to hold him. You can’t tell if you succeeded or not, but you must try…around you, things start to settle down…

…

PERCEPTION [Trivial: Success] – Suddenly you are in the dark. The only sound is the quiet breathing all around, except for—

KIM KITSURAGI – He jolts. His small body stiffens, chest convulsing as if he is trying to breathe and can’t, soft whimpers occasionally leaking from his throat.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] – Panic attack.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Impossible: Failure] – Here we go again, back to how you hate it the most…You can’t touch him at all. What can you do to comfort him?

VOLITION [Formidable: Success] – You’ve got to think of something…

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] – He’s still in that state from his nightmares. Maybe find a way to pull him out of it…

INLAND EMPIRE [Legendary: Success] – You can take away those memories.

YOU – Is that something I can do? Is it even okay? Won’t it do any damage to him?

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] – You’re the intermediary that connects him to the pale. Besides…

INLAND EMPIRE [Impossible: Success] – What do you think you’ve been doing all this time? Why do his memories always gravitate towards you and latch onto you?

KIM KITSURAGI – Still struggling to breathe, he begins clawing at his chest, wide eyes peering into the darkness in horror.

REACTION SPEED [Easy: Success] – No more time to waste.

YOU – Still not quite sure what to do, you just try and press your forehead against his, hoping something will happen. “Shhh…it’s okay…” And surprisingly enough, just like that, the memories start surging through your synapses.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Legendary: Success] – All the wounds inflicted on him, all the bullying he suffered, every bit of pain, every ounce of helplessness…you instantly tense up in the pain. Despite there being a natural barrier between your consciousness and his memories, you still have to try hard not to sucked in by that feeling…you have to hang on.

YOU – You grit your teeth through it and try to keep your voice steady: “I’ll take the nightmares away…it’s okay…slow down, take a deep breath…”

KIM KITSURAGI – His eyes go empty in an instant, but his body finally slackens, starting to relax as he slowly remembers how to breathe. You mechanically repeat words of reassurance—you can’t do much more than that—while Kim lets out a sob and then cries harder and harder as if the floodgates have opened, his emotions finally finding an outlet…but even then, he is quiet. At a glance, he gives nothing away but shaking shoulders and subtle snivels…

PAIN THRESHOLD [Impossible: Failure] – And there’s nothing you can do but pretend your arms can wrap around his thin shoulders, but even so, it all dissipates before your eyes…

…

LOGIC [Formidable: Success] – You know what happened next. He slipped out of bed and went to the public phone, jumping up to reach the receiver and remove it from the hook, then he stood on tiptoe to dial a string of numbers that didn’t exist yet, crying and begging for you to take him away…

“I don’t like it here, Harry…take me away…please…I don’t want to be here; I want to go home…”

…

“Come back…” he sobs. Now the old communal shower is empty once more except for him. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…please come back…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He’s sitting on the floor, legs crossed, an old radio transceiver in front of him. “Ha—” Before he even finishes the word, he senses your presence and looks up, the old mouth piece still raised to his chin. His eyes turn round in surprise behind his taped-up glasses, making that face look even younger. He should be thirteen or fourteen, you think.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Challenging: Success] – He was just about to call your name.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] – He didn’t think it would actually work. Not just because he didn’t know if you could hear him…there’s something else. Anxiety and guilt, not yet fully soothed by your presence.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Hey.” He said with a deep breath. He doesn’t usually bother this much with the niceties—you’d never expect him to be this nervous with you, after all you’ve been through.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Formidable: Success] – Such emotional upheaval seems atypical of him, but there are biological grounds to that. He lives in a body that gets progressively younger, which means increasingly unstable hormone levels and a prefrontal lobe that is constantly regressing in development: bound to lead to more intense emotional ups and downs. Not to mention what he’s been through, along with the inexplicable memory loss…His mind becomes more and more easily shaken by and susceptible to influences like *you*. This is also why most of the times you meet face to face, it’s from his younger years, whereas when it comes to the years in the middle, you get more glimpses through his memory. Back then, he was able to shut you out more successfully.

EMPATHY [Godly: Success] – It’s not that simple.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] – But even you know that you should treat a mind like this with as much gentleness as you can manage—something he rarely gets these days. You soften your tone as much as possible and smile to soothe him, “Hey.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He blinks and drops his gaze. “I thought…I thought you got mad at me.”

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] – He thought you weren’t coming back.

LOGIC [Formidable: Failure] – Because of what, exactly? When is this…? “You mean…?”

KIM KITSURAGI – “The day before?” The previous day for him, the next for everyone else. He doesn’t quite use *yesterday* when he doesn’t need to talk to other people. Straightening out time and tenses always takes extra effort on his part. “I…” he winces, as if ashamed to go into detail. “…I suppose *this*,” he gestures roughly between you and him, “doesn’t happen in chronological order, does it?”

YOU – You shake your head. “No, there isn’t really a pattern to it. Last time I was with you, you were just a kid…” Your heart wrenches in pain as you remember how he cried, but what’s the point of telling Kim that? It hasn’t happened to him yet, and no matter how much you explain, it won’t change the fact that there’s nothing you can do about it.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] – That’s just like how he is with you, isn’t it? You always have to hide things from each other. Because he carries the weight of time on his shoulder, and you…you carry the weight of him on yours.

YOU – You shrug. “…and next thing I know, I’m here.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He ducks his head again, unable to look you in the eye. “I suspected, but I never asked…” He shakes his head. “You always looked the same, and I often forget to think on your behalf… and you haven’t mentioned it much, either.”

YOU – You sigh. “Talking about it wouldn’t make too much of a difference, would it?”

KIM KITSURAGI – He looks up at you at that—and you know he gets it. He smiles wryly.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Trivial: Success] – What a pair you make.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Anyway…” He looks back down, wringing his hands. There are tiny cuts all over his fingers, which are twisting so hard that you’re afraid he might hurt himself. You reach over subconsciously before you remember you can’t touch him, but he obediently flattens his hands, but his fingertips still tap a little anxiously on his lap. “I threw a knife at you…did it happen for you yet? Anyway, I’m still sorry…”

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] – A spot of light shimmer stronger among the nebulae that envelop your consciousness. Sure you remember, though it seems so distant, the space in between interspersed with millions of memories, yet undeniably there, the penetrating light piercing right through the nothingness to your core.

You want to say that it was a long time ago, but it doesn’t feel like it. Time has lost its meaning for you, and the sense of anything resembling it is given to you by him, formed by memory after memory and dream after dream… your being only flows when you’re with him.

YOU – “It’s all right…” That’s not even the thing that hurts you the most. “And you weren’t wrong. I wasn’t there for you. Not in a way that mattered, anyway…It’s me who should be sorry, Kim. I’m sorry.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He shakes his head. “I know you were just trying to help…”

COMPOSURE [Legendary: Failure] – “But I only make it worse, don’t I? That’s what you said yourself…” You push on when you see Kim trying to say something, “No, you were right. You’ve always been right…Do you know why I keep haunting you? It’s because I don’t know how *not* to. I had no idea what I was doing, I heard you in the pale and I was too ignorant to let you go: all I thought about was being with you. I didn’t even consider the consequences, or what it would mean, and I ended up just barging into your reality and now I don’t even know how to stop. I want to help, but it’s only so that you’d want to keep me around, isn’t it? I want to save you, just like you saved me. But I can’t actually do anything at all, I can’t help you in anything, I just make everything worse…” words spill out your mouth with ugly sobs. “I don’t know how to make it better…”

KIM KITSURAGI – You see his pale hand covered in tiny wounds reach over. His fingers and palm go through your arm.

PERCEPTION (TOUCH) [Heroic: Failure] – You don’t really feel anything, and he knows it. But he doesn’t take his hand away.

KIM KITSURAGI – “You…” he says with difficulty. “It’s already easier with you.”

YOU – You jerk your head up.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Do you want to hear a secret?” There are still tears in his eyes, but he tries to smile.

DRAMA [Trivial: Success] – He looks you harder in the eye. As sincere as they come.

KIM KITSURAGI – “There’s never a time when I *don’t* want to keep you around.” His voice breaks at the end as he turns his face away again, instinctively trying to hide his vulnerability.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] – You know he can’t afford to look back, can’t allow himself to dwell on the past…but he wants to. God, he wants to. No matter how much he struggles, how reluctant he is, it’s a fact he can’t change. His voice rings in your head: *I’ve never had a choice, have I?*

YOU – Would he choose *me*, if he could?

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Heroic: Failure] – You don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t, either. Even if you asked now and got a positive answer from him, you still wouldn’t fully believe it. He won’t be able to put your mind at ease, just as you won’t be able to be there for him all the time, no matter how hard you try.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Thank you for not leaving,” he breaks the silence, patting his radio transceiver. “I’m glad I tried reaching out to you.”

YOU – You look over to the old transceiver as well. The hero that brought you here.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Legendary: Failure] – The transceiver is old and bulky. You can’t recognize what model it is—not that you’re any expert in this. “Where did you get it?”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Ah. From a junkyard, I think,” he shrugs. “At least that’s what my notes say…As for where exactly, that’s for me to find out. Gotta leave some surprises. The day before—tomorrow—they found it here and broke it right in front of me, and I don't how to fix it anymore…” he strokes the machine. “But at least it’s good now, and I can have it for a while.” He smiles and casually fiddles with some random switch.

RADIO TRANSCEIVER – The speakers start blaring a cacophony of swing jazz.

KIM KITSURAGI – He winces a little and grimaces. “Well, you take what you get…at least it’s not corny chorals, is it?”

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] – An idea hits you.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] – “Let me try something…” You make to turn the knob. It doesn’t quite follow your movements, but it does turn a little—

RADIO TRANSCEIVER – There’s something faint among the static, intermittent: “…DJ…DJS MESH AND FLACIO…AS ALWAYS… S-S-S-SSS-SSSPEE-EED FREAKS FM… THE HOTTEST, THE NASTIEST, THE MOST VULGAR…”

KIM KITSURAGI – His eyes slowly go wide. “Isn’t that…? How did you do it?”

YOU – “Well, ain’t I full of surprises,” you smirk.

RADIO TRANSCEIVER – “…BAD…BAD MOMMA’S BOY…H-H-HEAVY OF F-F-F-FFFOOT…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He looks back at you, grinning like a maniac.

KIM KITSURAGI – He’s lying on his side, your arms wrapped around his waist, his back warm against your chest. He stirs and turns in your arms, his young face ladened with old sorrow. He cups the corner of your jaw, drawing you closer, and gently caresses your face.

YOU – You lean your forehead against his, eyes closed, lost in the rare tenderness. You can’t remember when was the last time he took you into his embrace so lovingly.

LOGIC [Challenging: Success] – It’s not long since he met you again in the flesh and said another goodbye.

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] – But the mourning is far from over.

INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] – An endless cycle of tides.

KIM KITSURAGI – He leans in, closing his eyes, the tip of his nose and lips brushing your face, ghostly and feather-light. He sighs. “Why do you always have to make everything so…”

YOU – “Hard?” Putting up with you.

KIM KITSURAGI – He shakes his head. No. “…Easy.”

YOU – Ah.

KIM KITSURAGI – “You don’t even have to do anything, and I’m back to square one…” A small, bitter smile.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] – You think you get it.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] – You put it differently…but you’re saying exactly the same thing.

EMPATHY – If it wasn’t so easy, it wouldn’t be so hard. If loving him wasn’t as easy and natural as breathing, it wouldn’t be so hard and painful to keep away.

VOLITION – You’ve already given up on that. Now the only thing left for you to do is to see it through to the end. As for what will happen then, whether you’ll get to reunite with him in the afterlife, dissipate into the pale, or face the silent eternity alone…you don’t know.

ESPRIT DE CORPS – That would be Kim’s choice.

VOLITION – That’s all you can really do for him. Giving him a choice.

YOU – “I love you, you know that, don’t you?” You murmur, caressing his cheek, your thumb stroking his temple.

KIM KITSURAGI – He nuzzles your hand, the corner of his mouth curling up wryly.

EMPATHY [Legendary: Success] – That’s one of the first things he’s ever learned.

KIM KITSURAGI – “If only I could ever forget,” he whispers, kissing your palm.

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] – Memories. Countless memories agglomerate into swarms of algae, sea ice, nebulae, and you drift within, the tentacles of your consciousness reaching out in every direction, all enfolded softly and impermeably by regret and yearning. Yet the scent of nothingness floats towards you as you seek it out in turn. Gradually you take shape, the chaos becomes divided into sky and sea, and you wade through the waves, trekking towards the only light on the horizon, one step after another, closer and closer, finally reaching where reality meets the pale, through the porch collapse, treading the earth once more, becoming human again—

VISUAL CALCULUS [Trivial: Success] – There’s a swing at the end of the line, blue and yellow paint peeling off its rusted skeleton, scattered in the air and on the ground, embodying broken pieces of the sky and patches of grass adorned with forget-me-nots.

KIM KITSURAGI – He is sitting on the swing, holding a worn-out toy piggie, his tiny frame rocking back and forth. Perhaps sensing your approach, he turns back, grins and calls out, “Ha’ee!” Thick Suresne accent swallows the r. The crisp sound of his voice instantly fills in the rest of the picture. It’s a sunny spring afternoon. He tilts his face and repeats, lower, thoughtful, “Ha’ee…Ha’ee…feels weird.”

YOU – “Sounds fine to me,” you smile, sitting down next to him.

KIM KITSURAGI – “It’s my tongue! My tongue is so short now, it makes everything sound weird…” he mutters to himself, squeezing the piggie’s hand. You know he only got to keep it because it’s too old and too ugly for the other kids’ taste, until the day it got torn open under Kim’s curious hands because the threads weren’t able to hold it together anymore, until the day it met Kim for the first time in the corner of the toy box. Kim loves it, though, the worn fabric feels smooth and soft to the touch. He also holds piggie whenever he wants to touch you.

VOLITION – You’ll get the chance to return the hug eventually. Maybe the next time you see him in a dream.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Ha’ee?”

YOU – You come back to yourself. “Yes, Kim?”

KIM KITSURAGI – “I was just saying, today in class, we talked about what we wanna do when we grow up.”

YOU – “So what did you say you wanted to do?”

KIM KITSURAGI – “I know I’m going to be a cop, I think? With you?” He looks at you inquiringly, you nod, and he nods too. “But I said I wanted to be a pilot! Pilots are cooler.”

YOU – “Yeah, pilots are much cooler.”

KIM KITSURAGI – “That’s right! I can fly so high and watch you from the sky…I can look for you in the pale! Then we can be together all the time. Why didn’t I become a pilot? Did I stop wanting to be a pilot when I got older? Did I get boring?” He hangs his head and pouts.

YOU – You chuckle. You get off the swing and crouch down next to him to look him in the eyes. “Oh, Kim. I promise, you’ve always been *cool*. Even as a cop, you were the coolest of us all.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He beams. “Really?”

YOU – “Really. You also had all those bomber jackets. You looked especially cool in them.”

KIM KITSURAGI – “That’s okay, then. I can be a pilot cop! I can have adventures with you and we can help people together…” He gleefully makes up stories about him, you and piggie going on adventures in his small aerostatic. He goes on for ages, until he tires himself out, his mouth dry from all the talking as he yawns. “Ha’ee…you take over…I’ll be the,” another yawn. “…navigator.”

YOU – “Okay.”

KIM KITSURAGI – You watch as his eyelids droop. He still struggles to find a word or two about his imaginary course of flight. But before long, the caretaker comes over to pick him up, putting piggie in the crook of his arm. He grunts and slumps drowsily onto her shoulder. You stay by the swing, watching him leave…

…Suddenly you feel like you’re flying everywhere like an untied balloon, the counterweights dragging you down the depths of the ocean suddenly gone, leaving you to the ruthless currents as they sweep you away and tear you apart, with nothing to hold on to, your fragments fallen upon the dried, broken petals of a Insulinde lily caught in the cold wind of early spring in Martinaise, every imprint crystalizing into the swirling sand that sinks beneath the cold ripples of freshwater lakes in Katla, seeping into the condensation on every mirror before fading away, merging into the putrid gas that escapes the cavities of a discarded body and dissipating into the hot air of Samaran rainforests…

He’s free. It’s one of the few last thoughts that runs through your mind. And so are you. As for where you’ll go from here…

Moment of truth.

An inordinate amount of time passes. Some invisible force is pulling at you…

…

Slowly, you’re sinking into place…

…

A slight pressure. On the left. (There’s a left?) Around a part of you. Hand. Your hand is held by another hand. A faint, rhythmic vibration beneath your palm. You—

…

YOU – You find yourself in a bed. Your bed, the one at the home you shared on Rossell Street. You spent hundreds of nights here alone, but right now…

KIM KITSURAGI – He’s lying on his side, holding your hand over his heart, your arms wrapped around his waist, his back warm against your chest. The morning light burrows through the seams between the fibres of the curtains’ fabric, kissing his silhouette. He stirs slightly and twists around in your arms, revealing a face lined with age, a familiar face you haven’t seen since forever. His eyes widen a little as he reaches up to caress your face. He draws you closer, taking you in, as your eyes drink in every inch of his no longer supple skin, every fine, tender wrinkle etched around his eyes, devouring the dearly-missed details like a thirsty traveller in the desert. His eyes instantly fill up with tears, his hands pulling you into a violent kiss, those deft lips fervent and unstoppable, with a longing that spans a moment and a lifetime, with the weight of every memory, with the teary ecstasy of a full reunion, familiar, fitting, like instinct. You toss and roll your aged bodies around and around, making love as recklessly and as fiercely as two teenagers, your limbs and his intertwined until there’s no telling where you end and where he begins. You hold him so close, any tighter and you’d be pressing him into your skin, your face buried against his chest. He cradles your neck and whispers slowly, almost in reverence, “I… I remember everything.” He realizes he’s repeating what he once said—you remember, you were there, you lived it—but these are still the words that he finally chooses, as he gently strokes your hair and kisses it, as if to soothe you, to reassure you that this is where he will always choose to go, where he invariably belongs. With you.

YOU – For a moment, you’re at a loss for words. You want to say *I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t let you go. I never wanted to cause you any pain.* But that’s just being silly. He knows that the entanglement of your lives has brought you equal torment, that you finally understand him completely just as he finally understands you, and that he’s equally sorry and grateful—but that’s nothing now. You don’t have to dwell on that anymore, not when you’re both whole again at last. You want to say, *you finally chose to come back to me.* But that’s just being silly, too. He will always come back to you, returned to your side, not just by choice but by necessity, just as a man who has lost a limb would not hesitate for a moment when he can have that part of him back.

Now, at last, you can forever be one, never to part again.

So you say over the sudden lump in your throat, “I know.” You weren’t sure before, but now, now you know.

-The End-

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