"Did you two even contribute anything to extend her life? In this fake world, she will live—Y/n only has a less than a year to live or to put it another way, she'll die once she comes back to the real world."
"Do you even know what you're doing, Hanako-kun?"
"I'm saving her by confining her into this world, call this an obsession for her or whatever but as long as she lives, it would be fine. She'll forget her memories in the real world when she stays here for long anyways—it's better that way since she'll never have to worry about dying because of her condition."
"Stop with this crap, Hanako! Does Y/n-nee even want any of this?!"
"...I love her, please understand that I'm doing this because I want her to live."
Y/n slowly opened her eyes and found herself laying on a comfortable bed with a curtain above it, like those beds in fairytales that she caught a glimpse of back then. She swore she heard Hanako arguing with Nene and Kou—along with Mitsuba, that's a good thing that they convinced the pink haired boy to escape.
She ended up in a place what seems like to resemble a prison cell. Y/n rubbed her eyes using the heel of her palms, she slipped out of bed and quickly gripped the iron bars, trying to break herself free. Y/n is not a heavy sleeper, she managed to eavesdrop at Hanako's speech while he was talking to Kou about taking her with them to escape but the apparition won't let them do that so easily.
"Does that mean, Hanako-kun brought me here so that I can live long?" That's not bad of an idea at all, Y/n used to hope that her heart condition would be cured, her father kept giving her these promises that he'll find a way—a miracle even to get her free from her struggle. Ever since she met Hanako, she has this sudden urge to stop hoping for her condition to disappear.
At least when Y/n dies, she'll end up as a ghost with an unfinished business and she'll even be with Hanako. Yet the apparition boy does not like that idea at all, someone dying for him, he'd rather have Y/n live, hence why he is doing all of this. In this fake world, Y/n can be with Hanako, just the two of them—but it would be replaced by a fake because Hanako plans to go back to the real world to continue his duties.
Y/n grip on the bars softened, she wiped her tears in a swift motion using her arm, there's no way she's going to cry over this. Y/n's eyes widened slightly when a certain thought enters her mind. "What am I living for all this time?" Is she only living because she wanted her condition to be cured? Or maybe because a dead person like Hanako gave her life meaning? Or was it because to see her dear friends achieving their dreams in the future.
Lets say, Y/n chose the option to stay in the fake world, to live continuously and not to worry about dying anymore. In her opinion, it would be a waste—everything that she worked on to live her life as best as she can, then all of her efforts will go down to the drain. And then what? It seems so unsatisfying that way.
'What is your purpose to live then?'
Y/n pulls out her phone from her skirt pocket to check her heartbeats, even though her pace maker is nowhere to be found, she stared blankly at the straight line of the monitor, so this is the part where she's going to rot in this cell in hopelessness. Y/n stood up from the ground to walk around to gather some ideas on what to do next, then she sat down, and stood up once again when she felt like walking again. "I just want to go home..." Y/n wished as her voice cracked.
Y/n crawled to the bed to check under the covers and saw that there are art materials, nothing interesting but drawing could help her get her mind off things. She took a random oil pastel and started to draw on the floor. She drew all the things that she missed from the real world, her grandmother, her father and her two siblings, her friends from school, then she mindlessly drew Hanako in which she halts.
Her hand shook with anger, tears start to spill from her eyes and she vigorously scribbled on top of the drawing of Hanako, seeing his face would only make her pissed off, she didn't want to see him or anyone at the moment so she scribbled all the things she drew to vent out her frustration. "Haah!" She angrily sighed out and threw the oil pastel to the corner as it rolled under the bed. Y/n lifted the bedsheet to take the coloring material out until a familiar object caught her eye. It was small and circular, then her heart was about to leap out of her chest when she recognized that object,
Her heart pace maker. Y/n sighed in relief, at least a bit of luck was there by her side, she crawled under the bed to take the circular pace maker and dusted it off. How did it end up in this cell anyways? So it is true that her illness is not cured, there's no way that her heart pace maker will disappear from thin air and some fake copy of her mom would say that she is cured would be believable.
Y/n gently grazes the pace maker with the tips of her fingers, feeling hesitant to know how many heartbeats she has left, how many days she had left to live and will she able to make it alive in the real world. There's a higher chance that if she has a lesser heartbeats, she wouldn't die in this world but she'll have a sudden and quick death when she stepped in to the real world.
This felt like she had been lied to. Well, this world is a one big lie anyways. Y/n took a deep breath, she reminded herself that no matter what happens, her decision of leaving this fake world even with less heartbeats will never change. She attached the heart pace maker in her collarbone like a piercing, then turned it on so that the app will detect it.
"No...no no no..."
"This can't be happening..."
5000 bts
Y/n finally understood why her heartbeats decreased in such a huge amount, it was still around a million yesterday, maybe the heart palpitations that happened recently triggered to lessen her heartbeats, or when she was passed out. 'No, it's neither of them—I would have 20 million left if those were the reason, then what is the cause...'
The common sense hits her, false love will decrease her heartbeats to the point that she'll end up dying, then true love cures her disease. They are currently in a fake world and it's self-explanatory that everything is fake, then that could only mean one thing—Hanako, who is pretending to be Amane in this world, perceived his love for her is false. If locking her up in this cell because he didn't want her to escape to the real world because she will die is making her pissed, then knowing that his love is fake is pissing her off even more. "Hanako, what the fuck?!" She shouted quite harshly.
Coincidentally, Hanako arrived to check on Y/n. He was holding a candle as he went to her cell, casually walking up to her. "Y/n, you're awake." Hanako had the audacity to smile not knowing that he's the sole reason why her heartbeats increased. Y/n had to face him, she has to confront him so she turned around with a pissed off glare on her pretty face.
"No, I'm asleep." Y/n sourly replied, trying to hold herself back from saying bad things to Hanako, she'll end up hurting his feelings if she spilled her heart out. "Look who decided to finally show up, I bet you had fun with your little acting with us." Y/n says with a bitter tone. Somehow she doesn't hate Hanako—even if she wanted to she couldn't hate him, she only hated his actions, for doing this to her.
Yeah, no wonder his love for her is fake. He's locking her up in this world so that she wouldn't get the hint that he's faking every single damn thing, he's planning every act, thinking that no one would suspect a thing. "What the fuck is going on with that stupid head of yours? Do you fucking think that I want any of this?"
"You could've asked me if I wanted a fake world but no—you decided to go your way. Why are you just doing whatever you want and don't care what others think?" Y/n held on to the bars and looked down on the ground, refusing to take a look at Hanako even if its just for a second. She could've ripped that stupid smile on his face right now. "Pretending to be alive, pretending to be my boyfriend, and then you gave me those stupid lies back there..."
"I think it's better that way!" Hanako cheered, putting a finger against his cheek, hiding his true low brightness façade in front of Y/n. His face was beaming with happiness when he said his next words. "I wanted to see what it would like to be your boyfriend. It's more fun than I expected~"
"Then, is it fun to play with my feelings too?"
Hanako's smile faltered, he lowered his candle down as he opened his mouth to answer her question but she cut him off before he could let out a breath. She chuckled in annoyance and she was in verge of tears due to the feeling of a lump forming inside her throat. "Huh, no wonder when you kissed me from that rooftop before that star festival, nothing happened to me, my heart is still as it is. When you told me that you'll stop misleading me and told me that you love me, there's still no effect."
"Didn't you say that true love can cure your condition?" Hanako questioned, his face twisted into nervousness as he sets down the candle to the ground. "I swear, I thought all of those things I did for you would help you—"
"Is this helping, Hanako?" Y/n raised her phone for Hanako to see the heart rate monitor, his expression dropped when he saw that she only has around 4800 heartbeats left, meaning that she only has an hour left to live if she comes back to the real world. Hiding the heart pacemaker from Y/n is the same as betrayal, betting that Hanako hid it from her before he took her to the fake world so that she'll be oblivious, thinking that her condition is cured. "The reason why it didn't work, is because you're only doing this to cure my disease—not by actually loving me."
"We're not in the real world Hanako—you pretended to be alive for my sake, you told me all those things, thinking that it would unknowingly make my heart skip a beat only to realize that everything you said to me is not true." Y/n took off her pace maker from her collarbone, she waited for Hanako to defend himself and to blame her for summoning him in the first place, or maybe he could segue the topic from mentioning her wish to talk with Fuji and maybe use it against her.
"It's not like that—"
"Liar." Y/n threw the heart pace maker to Hanako, hitting him on the face. She broke down into tears after that, she wanted to wake up from this nightmare despite everything is looking like a dream, a nightmare disguised as a daydream rather. Hanako was about to cry, but he masked it with an apologetic smile.
"No matter how many times I try to defend myself, you wouldn't believe me with all of your heart." Hanako decided that it's best to leave her alone for now, he wanted to tell her that he actually loves her—rather, he fell in love with her, somehow that condition of hers backfired making her think that he was giving her fake love. "I'm going to save you, Y/n." He promised.
"How are you going to save me then? It's too late, just give up." Y/n turned away from Hanako, hugging her shoulders as she leaned against the bars. "I don't want to talk to you at the moment. Please leave me alone."
Hanako took the candle from the ground, he walked away from her cell and when he reaches the exit of the tower, he glanced at Y/n to see if she was looking at him—she wasn't. Hanako knew that she's not going to look at his way, his eyes soften as he turned his head to the direction in front of him. "I love you." He didn't expect an answer so he stepped out of the tower and locked the door.
"I love you too." Y/n replied once his presence is no longer there. She attached her device on her collarbone once again, she opened her phone to see how many heartbeats she had left, then her face fell in confusion. Instead of seeing exactly 4800 on her phone—it was now 4801. Y/n rubbed her eyes to see if she's hallucinating that her heartbeats were added by one, her eyes must be tricking her right now but then it went back to 4800 as it slowly decreases in each second.
It's probably some weird glitch on her phone or maybe she's too tired that she starts seeing things.
Follow, Follow My Heartbeat
Until The Sun Rises
Feel My Rhythm, Please Don't Stop
Don't Let Go Of This Moment, Baby
You And I Are Falling
Next Time Turn The Clock Around
Where Should I Go?
Come On, It's Starting Again
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loraine's note:
*gives u tissues* here. lesson learned, date hanako but not someone who's like him :D mwahahaha i had fun making this chapter and yeah i got sum glasses lmao-