Chapter Text
Neil appeared out of thin air in Haru’s living room. She could be seen folding up the futon to be put away, struggling with each movement. The air around felt light and cool because of the air conditioner being switched on, however it seemed that only the areas visible from the bedroom had form: everything else was static, from the kitchen to the windows. Neil and Eva were translucent as they stood in the living room. The floor and seating were dirtier than when they arrived.
“Last memory the place could access, huh?” Neil commented on the memory.
A figure composed of static walked through the front door, quickly coming in front of the FOV of the door frame. Color and form came to the figure, revealing itself as Kotomo.
“That’s Kotomo-san. This must be when she first arrived,” Eva said as she took notice of the memory playing out.
“Alright, we walk in then. ACTIVATING SUPER TRANSLATIO-”
“Don’t start it, Neil,” Eva interjected in her classic deadpan tone.
Neil finished activating the translation feature, a face of upset at Eva's interruption.
Everything around them that was in Japanese translated into English, including the voices of Haru and Kotomo.
“Haru-chan, are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital? You’re one wrong step away from breaking a joint,” Kotomo said to Haru in a concerned yet comforting tone. Her ribbon was also notably not present on her head.
“Kotomo-chan, I’ve already told you I’ll call those memory-changers when that time comes. I’d rather die happy than keep living like this.”
“We can’t keep going on like this, Haru-chan. I know how much you want to see her again, but you’re slowly killing yourself with all of this stress, both physical and mental!”
“I told you, I’ll call those memory-changers.
“And what if you’re not happy? You’ll have spent your life savings on dissatisfaction!”
“Kotomo-chan.” Haru’s voice had raised to a confrontational tone from her initially small and weak one. For such a soft-spoken person, the volume in her voice could make even someone like Rob wince. At least she didn't seem to be that angry.
“Haru-chan, I want you to die happy. We’ve been best friends for nearly sixty years. You know all I want is for you to not spend your last moments like Yui-chan.”
Haru paused.
"Don't mention her," she sternly responded.
"That is why you signed the contract, right? To speak to-"
"I said don't mention her, Kotomo-chan." Haru was quick to cut her off, her stern voice turning into anger.
Haru's right fist clenched as it let go of the futon. Kotomo stepped back a little.
"Haru-chan, please. Look at me. This is what you've wanted. You've wanted to speak to her one last time for over fifty years! Until I told you about Sigmund, you didn't think that you'd ever get the chance to speak to Yui-chan-"
"I said don't mention Yui-chan!" Haru's voice suddenly reached what felt like a near-deafening volume.
Kotomo stepped back, fear and deep concern in her eye. Haru's enraged breathing began to slow as commotion in the apartment grew for a minute before dying down.
"Haru-chan..."
Haru gathered herself once more, realizing she had done it again.
"Oh no..."
Haru looked at herself as if she had done this before. A tear began to fall from her right eye onto her wrinkled face.
"I'm so sorry, Kotomo-chan!"
Kotomo had dealt with Haru's bursts of anger for over fifty years now. She rushed to her side as Eva and Neil circled the two.
"Haru-chan, it's alright! I know you miss her! That's why you are doing all of this."
Kotomo locked her arms around Haru in an embrace as Haru began to tear up more. She started coughing hard as she held on to Kotomo.
"Wow, her last memory was more tragic than we expected. I'm not sure if we'll be able to initiate the standard interaction procedure, but we'll be able to work something out."
A blue orb entered Eva's body after the memory ended.
Neil just stood there in silence. Eva looked over at him.
"Neil?"
"...Bullshit. Translation team didn't even name 'Yui-chan' as the best friend."
"Neil, we had to come here on short notice. They probably left that out in a rush or abridged it."
Eva couldn't tell if Neil was being dramatic for the sake of drama or was genuinely upset at Sigmund's translation teams. Hell, they didn't even have an official translation team: this was an outlier case. Some inter-branch liaison officer probably had to get the report from Japanese to English and send it to the main branch. She recalled the case file they reviewed in the company van before the flight.
Eva didn't have an eidetic memory, but she recalled a few highlighted bits of info the first page, which included Haru's most recent passport photo.
NAME
Haru Hasegawa
DATE OF BIRTH
February 11, 2007
SEX
Female
NATIONALITY
Japan
WISH:
"I want to talk to my best friend again."
...
No mention of a Yui-chan.
"How could they have forgotten if they did?" Eva quickly pondered to herself.
The two walked around the bedroom. It was more cluttered than it was when they arrived that morning, Kotomo must have really helped clean up in the time t
"Try to enable interaction, Neil."
"Right. And lock her into the embrace."
"Just delete her from the memory for now, Neil."
"Alright. Enabling interaction."
The doctors went from translucent to opaque as time stopped for everything except Haru.
Haru suddenly noticed how Kotomo was now frozen in place.
"Kotomo-chan, are you..."
Haru suddenly noticed she wasn't speaking Japanese.
"HUH!? WHAT AM I SAY-"
"Woah, it's okay!" Eva was taken aback by Haru's sudden reaction.
Haru suddenly bolted her head to the side.
"WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE- oh."
Haru noticed the white coats and nametags with the logo of the Sigmund Agency of Life Generation.
You must be the doctors from Sigmund Japan- I said that weird again!"
"Haru-san, I am Dr. Rosalene and this is Dr. Watts of Sigmund Toronto, our headquarters. Sigmund Japan's caseload was too overwhelming to take your case directly, so we were dispatched to fulfill your contract. You are currently not speaking your first language of Japanese because we are using our machine's translation software to change your voice into English," Eva said to Haru, knowing that she was not expecting non-Japanese doctors.
Haru was still locked into the frozen Kotomo's embrace as she stood, frozen in shock.
"It's really weird understanding everything you're saying right now. What about-"
Neil focused on Kotomo for a second. Kotomo suddenly turned to static and disappeared as Haru fell to the ground.
"HOLY SHI-" Haru stopped herself as she stepped back in horror. "Woah, excuse my language there. I'm not used to speaking English so fluently and I tend to swear quite a bit in Japanese..."
"It's fine, Hasegawa-san. She's not dead, we just removed her from the current memory: she's still in your mind. And I think she probably swears as much as you," Neil chuckled.
Haru chuckled back. "Yes, she does! Wait, my body feels like it's not hurting..."
"The type of interaction the Memory Editor makes you feel in this case alleviates any pain to allow for any movement we may need you to do right now. You'll forget it after we head to the next memory.
"This feels great! Shame I'll forget it afterwards."
Seeing how Neil was probably gonna drag Haru into an irrelevant conversation, Eva jumped straight to the main point.
"You don't have much time left, Haru. In the real world, you're currently within about 30 hours of death, give or take 5 hours or so. You signed your contract to speak to Yui-chan, right?"
"Yes. Respectfully, Dr. Rosalene—woah that sounds weird—how do you know her name?"
"We saw the start of the memory from Kotomo-san's entrance and exit. She also let us call her Kotomo-san."
"Ah, Kotomo-chan. She usually does that with English-speakers, it makes it easier to remember. And you can call me Haru, doctors. But about your first point, you didn't see me..."
"We did, Haru-san. She must have been important to you and that's understandable."
Haru's wrinkled face formed into a embarrased, small red smile as another tear rolled down her eye.
"Sorry about that, doctors. Yui-chan meant a lot to me."
"No that's fine, Haru-san. You did what you did without full knowledge that we would be taking a peek at it," Eva replied.
Neil interjected, seeing how now Eva was likely about to drag the conversation on.
"Eva- I mean, Dr. Rosalene, we need to get this show on the road and find a memento," Neil whispered to Eva.
"Right," Eva whispered back. She turned her attention back to Haru and spoke to her in her normal voice, albeit this time less relaxed.
"Haru-san, to traverse further into your memories, we will need a memento. It could be anything. Book, keys, pillow, etcetera."
Haru wiped the tear from her eye and pondered for a moment.
She eyed a pen that was given to her by the Sigmund Japan office. Haru walked over to the pen.
"Perhaps this?"
Eva walked over and tried to pick up the pen. An aura surrounded the pen.
"Woah, that is weird!" Haru exclaimed in response.
"This is exactly what we needed," Neil replied to her exclaimation.
They had gathered the single Memory Link. Eva gripped the link in her hand and threw it at the aura, causing it to shatter. The pen was now faintly glowing.
"Well Haru-san, I guess this is it. We're going to pause you soon, which means you will cease to move like Kotomo-san," Eva explained to Haru.
Haru was slightly spooked by this, wincing a little.
"At least do you want to tell us anything before you tell us, Haru-san? After we jump to the next memory, your real mind will enter a comatose state." Eva asked, verifying that there was nothing else left.
"...I trust you to fulfill my wish, Doctor. Thank you!" Haru flashed a comforting smile at Eva.
"Aaaand, PAUSE!" Neil exclaimed, locking Haru in her smile.
"The voice commands don't need you acting like some anime hero, Neil. It can hear you fine at conversational level."
"Oh bite me. We're in JAPAN! Might as well act like an anime hero!" Neil got into a fighting stance as he was in Street Fighter II.
"Cut it Neil. We're about to jump memories."
"Ah, forget it." Neil's voice deflated.
The room began to turn to white as the pair of doctors jumped memories.