Shijima enters the tower, holding an oil lamp to find her way in to the direction of Y/n's cell. She spotted her leaning against the bars in a depressed state and homesickness towards the real world, in which she yearned to go back to. "Good evening~" Shijima greeted as she crouched down near Y/n. "I came to check on you, what's wrong? Is Honorable No.7 bullying you?"
"That guy? Honorable? How can you even call him honorable if he does shit like this?" Y/n clicked her tongue in annoyance. Shijima lifted her pointer finger to talk, then she lowered it down when she realized that Y/n kind of made sense. "That little shit wanted me to fucking live I mean sure I do want to live long but not by this—I'd rather flop on the ground and die in the real world than living because of one big stupid lie."
Shijima takes her sketchbook as she started to draw a box of chocolates, it dropped out from the sketchbook, successfully catching it and giving it to Y/n. "Do you want some sweets, then?" Shijima asked with a kind smile on her face. "Maybe it would help you sweeten your bitterness towards him." Y/n carefully takes the chocolate from her hands, well, those cookies from the astronomy observation weren't enough to make her stomach full.
"The fact that this imaginary world has come to this point, is all thanks to you." Shijima mentioned. Y/n was halfway into biting the chocolate but stopped at the braided girl's new information about the fake world, like, what do you mean it's all thanks to her? Y/n felt pissed and confused. "You might be thinking that you never asked for it—yes you didn't, it was the Honorable No.7's idea to keep you in this world. Originally, this is the thing that he hated most of all. He realized that here, you can "live" so he couldn't bear to destroy it."
"He said he would wait until it was finished, and then he alone will return to the real world." And Y/n had enough listening to Hanako's bullshit—his obsession to keep her living, even Camus said that everything comes to an end because of death yet this guy has the audacity to call her a lunatic for calling him Hanako when he was pretending as Amane when he was the one who hated this place from the start and his dumbass didn't want to because he preferred her to live because of a lie. "Honorable No.7's hope that you might live here in a happy daydream forever."
"He seems to care for you greatly." Shijima finished with a gentle smile. Y/n took a rather deep breath to calm herself down to prevent from thrashing this whole place because of her frustration.
"I see, can I hold your hand?" Y/n reaches her hand to Shijima, she wanted to be comforted by someone at the moment—except for Hanako, he's the reason why she was pissed off anyways. Shijima looks at her own hands as she gave them to Y/n, then unexpectedly, she managed to held both hands and pointed a palette knife near Shijima's neck. "Don't move or I won't hesitate to stab you with this. I normally don't curse but Hanako-kun is pissing me off so I'm going to vent out my feelings towards him right now."
"Oh my fucking gosh, if he wanted to destroy this madness in the first place then I would've been in the real world probably watching memes with my 20 million heartbeats—that selfish ass motherfucker, I will beat the shit out of him when I come out of this fucking cell!" Y/n was ready to throw hands at Hanako, the dude didn't like this world as well, then he decided to keep it because he thought that it would help her live forever. "This guy be wishing me a happy daydream but I'm not fucking happy, how can I? Bruh, how is this fake world helping me live long when my hearbeats is around 4500 bts now?!"
"What in the actual of fuck?! How can you do this without my permission?! You think you're one step ahead of everyone and you're looking down at us because you think you are the leader of the Seven Wonders. Like, you can't just make someone live forever just because you died early!"
"I understand that there are things he doesn't want to tell me just because he thought I wouldn't get it because of this barrier between the life and the dead, thinking that humans and dead people won't click with one another." Y/n was fuming with frustration, the grip on her palette knfe became shaky because of the pent up anger that she's feeling right now. "Then this guy be pulling the flirty moves on me—giving me affection and all that crap but the reason why I'm still sick is because he's only doing those things to cure my disease—"
"I'm going to save you, Y/n." Y/n mimics Hanako's voice in a mockingly way as if to disrespect his desires in keeping her alive but Y/n doesn't care anymore, he can go suck her dick or whatever. Then she changes her voice back to normal. "Bruh how? I literally have an hour left to live if I come out to the real world right now—or maybe I'll drop down to the ground at the moment I get out of this boundary." She laughed sarcastically—more like a pissed off laugh with an annoyed tone lacing on her voice.
Y/n rarely curses—well, if her grandmother is not around, but she curses in school or when she's alone in school. At the first time her classmates heard her curse, they gasped since she doesn't look like the type to say such a colourful language, not even a foul mouthed character in an anime can compare her. "Hanako-kun, I don't fucking get that guy, I swear to god. Preventing someone to die, that's a bullshit excuse. If he does care about me, he'll respect my wishes to get me out of this world because he knew I wouldn't like that."
"Death is unavoidable, we all die at the end and that's it. That's the absurdity of life where nothing lasts forever and everything that is born at this very moment will start dying eventually."
Shijima decided to shift the topic to another one, there is this question that she wanted to ask Y/n about regarding to Hanako, though it would've pissed the girl even more and so she did ask. "Do you love him?" Shijima questioned, expecting another outburst from the female inside the cell but surprisingly Y/n was calm, she even lowered her palette knife and let go of her hands.
"It's funny." Y/n sob-laughs, she was annoyed at Hanako and at herself for not bringing herself to hate Hanako as a person but she does hate his actions, especially what he is doing right now, her brittle feelings are to blame. "I can't hate Hanako-kun as a being, I only hated his actions... it's more like I hate myself—this wouldn't have happened if I never had this condition in the first place, or maybe I never made that wish of getting to talk to that old friend of mine."
"Because all I really want is to be cured from my illness. I want to finally be okay without the worry of looking at my heartbeats like a ticking time bomb."
"Saying it'll be okay is nothing more than just a wish." Shijima suddenly reminisced something, probably a past event before her death. Y/n noticed the look on her face. "A long time ago, there was someone who wished for the same thing, but no matter how much you dream, it doesn't change reality. It's someone I can't ever meet again."
"Want me to help you meet them?"
Y/n flinched when she saw that Tsukasa was standing between them with his blackened eyes and a sadistic smile and yes, something is definitely wrong and Y/n can sense it. "You were listening to us, this whole fucking time?!" Y/n exclaimed, feeling infuriated at Tsukasa's appearance, the fact that he even looks like Hanako pisses her more since she doesn't even want to see him at the moment.
"Why are you here?" Fear rises over Shijima's face at the supernatural. He has this grin plastered on his face that would make you ask on who he hurted because you can't trust that smile at all—Y/n blocked an arm in front of Shijima, as if that would make Tsukasa back away in fear, the kid is disturbing as hell.
"You must be Amane's girlfriend." Tsukasa walked over to Y/n, putting his face near her as Y/n moved away in fear. He provoked. "Oh my, did you two fight? I'm sorry to hear that, who wouldn't be mad when someone's love for you turned out to be a lie." Y/n takes the pillow from the bed and threw it at him with full force.
"Shut up!" Y/n shouted.
"You called me, No.4" Tsukasa floated while holding two of his tsueshiros on his hands with an amusing smile on his face, the first thing that comes into your mind when you hear the word "sadist" is Tsukasa in general. "You made that wish right? Your wish called to me from your heart." He used his tsueshiro to slice open the bars of the cell. Y/n deadpanned, she's starting to think that Tsukasa is not that bad, he just need a little work with his approaches.
"Since I've been summoned, I have no choice but to make it come true." He said. Shijima tried to reason with Tsukasa on what he was doing will make Hanako mad. Tsukasa turned to look at Y/n once again. "Congratulations! You're fifty minutes away from death—once that heart of yours stop beating completely, I don't mind stealing you from Amane and making you my second assistant once you're dead."
Tsukasa arched his back slightly in front of Y/n, putting his hands behind his back. Y/n takes back from saying that he's not that bad, he's definitely worse. "I want you to help her grant her wish, since it was you who brought out No.4's wish." Tsukasa points a finger at Shijima. "The price is one, how about it No.4? I will grant your wish." The tsueshiros started to lift Y/n and Shijima up in the air. Tsukasa had a bright smile on his face as he waved goodbye to the two girls. "Have a nice trip~" He clapped both of his hands as the two girls disappeared in thin air.
---
Y/n groggily opened her eyes, she shot up awake and found herself back in that same hospital styled space that she went to when she passed out because of Mirai, the clock keeper, forwarding her time. "So I'm here once again, huh?" Y/n smiled slightly, trying to lighten herself up. She remembered seeing herself laying on the hospital bed, unconscious with her father talking to a doctor.
She saw silhouettes of nurses gossiping to one another as she passed by. Y/n stopped to hear what the nurses are saying. "How unfortunate..." The nurses hushed. "She's so young, she had a whole life ahead of her, do you think she'll survive?" They asked. Y/n puts her hands inside her skirt pocket and continued walking as the nurses continued whispering with one another. There was this heavy feeling that the hospital has something to do with her since this is the second time that she went here in her dream. Maybe this is somehow of a foreshadowing that she'll end up dying in the hospital when her heart condition is not cured.
"Senpai..."
Kou? Y/n stopped from her tracks, was that Kou's voice that she heard? Y/n is about to go insane at this rate to the point that she can hear voices of her kouhai. Y/n ignored it and looked left and right to search for Shijima. "Senpai is not waking up..." She heard Kou's voice once again.
"Kou-kun, don't worry, Y/n's going to wake up." This time it was Nene who was speaking. Y/n thought that she probably passed out when Tsukasa appeared and Kou and Nene were calling her from consciousness. "Y/n, please wake up." A sigh of relief escapes from her lips, at least this is a dream—it has always been a dream, like a dream-ception thingy. Y/n found Shijima standing by the door, she must be looking at something.
"Shijima-san, are you alright?" Y/n decided to take a peek on what Shijima was looking, an unknown girl with dark brown hair laying on a hospital bed while hugging her sketchbook in her sleep. "Shijima-san, if I may ask, is this girl used to be you?" The braided girl stiffened all of a sudden when Y/n guessed it correctly on who that girl was.
"Have you heard of this rumor, Shijima-san of the art room? She was very talented at drawing, but her family was opposed to her continuing on the path of art, so in order to chase her dream—she decided to kill herself."
Shijima sighed disappointedly at the sight of her past self. "Really, it's all just so stupid right?" She asked, not sparing a glance at Y/n. "There's no point in fiction." She stepped in the room as she walked towards the sleeping girl. "But I have one wish—" Y/n gasped when she saw Shijima raising her rapier to the other girl.
"To kill Mei Shijima, that's all there is to it."
"Nope! Not on my watch!" Y/n ran to stop Shijima from killing her other self by pushing her to the ground by force.
"Would you kindly refrain from getting in my way? This has nothing to do with you..." Shijima argued back as she tried to get Y/n off of her. Y/n stuck her tongue out while holding her back, it looks like that Shijima has issues from her past—seems reasonable. The two girls are now practically shoving each other, unbeknownst to them that the girl that was laying on the hospital bed had pressed the button.
"Did you call, dear?"
"What's wrong dear?"
"How are you feeling?"
The silhouettes of the nurses started to grew larger and larger. Shijima narrowed her eyes, gripping on to the rapier that she was holding. She sliced up the shadow nurses that were crowded around her. Y/n felt a hand sneak in to grab her wrist as they escaped the hospital room. They went to the second floor to catch their breath—"Ah that scared me, I thought there was a suspicious person enter the room so I pressed the nurse call button. Are you okay?"
"I'm good—but that alarm button sounds loud as heck." Y/n replied, she had a closer look at Mei, she has a striking resemblance to the supernatural version of herself. "You're Shijima-san when she was still alive, no?" Y/n asked, making sure that she got it right. Mei's lips curled up into a smile as she puts her hands on her lap.
"That's right, I'm Shijima-san." Mei introduced herself. "What's your name?"
"I'm Y/n L/n, I am familiar about this place although I never ventured far down—but somehow, I think I'm lost." Y/n explained with matching hand motion but Mei thought it was unnecessary for her to do so since she get what she's saying.
"If that's the case, would you like me to lead you to the exit?" Mei asked. Y/n's eyes sparkled for the first time at the newfound hope of getting out of this hospital, then Mei lifted her chin as she leaned in to Y/n with a smug on her face. "Only if you'll hear out my wish, then I'll help you~"
---
The sight of the fluffy pancakes oozing with maple syrup down to the plate made Mei's eyes sparkled with joy, interlacing her hands with delight. The two girls were seated by a table for two. Y/n decided to order a small slice of tiramisu, she's been craving for sweets lately, maybe she needed to sweeten her bitterness—like Shijima said back in her cell. "Omigosh it looks so yummy!" Mei fangirled as she took a lot of pictures of the food.
"This is your wish?" Y/n questioned as she lifted the edge of the teacup to her lips and sipped on her tea. Mei took a bite of the fluffy pancake using her fork as she ate it—guessing that she really loved pancakes.
"Y/n-chan, do you want some too?" Mei lifted her fork with a bit of the pancake as she instructed her to open her mouth to feed her. Y/n backed away with a huge blush on her face, as embarrassing as it may seem, she doesn't like being fed it feels so awkward to her liking but it must be nice. She hesitated to open her mouth, Y/n loved sweets but then she remembered that small fight she had with Hanako back there. She felt bad for talking shit about him behind his back and throwing him her heart pace maker to his face. "It's gonna get cold, y'know."
"Here, just one bite." Mei coaxed. Y/n opened her mouth and took a bite of the pancake that the brown haired girl has offered. Her eyes watered because of the yumminess of the syrup and the pancake combined together.
"Ahhh~ It tastes so good." Y/n dreamily says. Mei smiled, putting her hands on her cheeks as she watched Y/n ate her tiramisu along with her getting some of her food in which the latter obliged. "Mei-chan, there's something I'd like to tell you." She said.
"Sure, what's up?"
"There's this boy that I fought with recently before I ended up here. I told him to leave me alone and I don't want to see him again, and now I regret telling him those things—how should I approach him?" Y/n took another bite of her tiramisu. "The reason why we fought that he was always misleading me to the point that he's giving me mixed feelings whether he really loves me or was he doing it out of pity."
"You have a boyfriend, Y/n-chan?"
"The fuck—no." Y/n cleared things out. "He's not my boyfriend..."
"But you want him to?" Mei could feel herself smirk when Y/n started to blush while speaking incoherently, trying to deny the fact that Y/n wants Hanako to be her boyfriend for reals. Y/n groaned in defeat, there's no way out of this now that Mei is going to tell her some advices. "I see, I think you should go ask him yourself. Have a heart to heart conversation with him, you have the right to feel mad about him misleading you but it would be hard to accept if he never likes you in the first place."
Y/n chewed on her tiramisu in a slow manner as she processed what Mei had told her. After eating their food, they drank some tea together, Y/n admits that she had fun hanging out with Mei. "Thank you for spending time with me, I had so much fun." Mei cheerfully smiled while sipping on her tea. "You said that you wanted to go back right? I, also must return soon. You see, I'm in the midst of drawing a picture. I'm enrolled in an art course, we were tasked with drawing something."
"Whoah that's cool, you're going to an art school." Y/n felt a slight of enviosity on how Mei immediately chose what course she's going to take and for her, Y/n decided not to think about it anymore because she's going to die early anyways. But if Y/n chose to rely on hope, she wanted to be a pastry chef when the future comes.
"Yes! Even my parents are rooting for me." Mei excitedly says as she flexed her arm with a determined look on her face. "So I gotta do my best!"
'Ain't her parents against the idea of Mei pursuing art? And then she killed herself because of it, that is according to the rumors...' It's always the pesky rumors that distort the truth and as it grows, it would be impossible to change their minds. Does that mean that even the past of a supernatural will be changed in one single rumor? If so, is it possible that Hanako's past—especially at the part where he killed someone—was just a twisted rumor from Kou and Akane?
The whispers of the nurses started to get louder and louder, gossiping about Mei's state in the hospital as it crowded around Y/n and Mei. "Y/n-chan, all the students' completed artwork, it'll be hung all around the art room. My drawing, once I'm done and it's been submitted." Mei lifted her head with a tired smile on her face, the one that held hopelessness and sorry. "Would you come and look at it then."
Mei originally died from an illness, not from ending her life. Y/n thought that both of them had some resemblance, they're both dying from an illness at this very moment. Y/n had less than an hour to live. "You're the same too, right Y/n-chan?" Mei reached over to hold her hands for comfort. "We both have zero intention of dying."
"Yeah, once I come back, I'll no longer live."
"I think you're misinterpreting something." Mei interlaced their fingers together, Y/n watched as she held both of her hands, the warmth of her skin with a hint of coldness felt comforting for some reason. "You're not from here, am I right?" She questioned. A bunch of unfamiliar yet familiar memories came to flood in at the moment Mei said that question, Y/n thought that the series of events didn't belong to her or was there something that is missing.
In her vision, under the winter night sky, a blurry image of a girl stepped on the road as the cars in line stopped from moving. She crossed the street, not knowing that the traffic light turned green—the girl's eyes flashed before her eyes as the truck started to get closer and closer until a boy around her age jumped in to save her life but both of them met their wicked fate.
'Whose memories are these...?'
There's also another thing that Y/n may resemble Shijima in away—she might also end up as a supernatural once she comes back in the real world. No wonder Tsukasa was excited to grant her a wish once she's dead. Then, Y/n saw that Shijima appeared behind Mei in attempts to hunt her down. "Mei-chan! Behind you!" Y/n warned.
Mei dodged the attack, then she fell down to her chair as her head was slammed against the floor. Y/n stood up from her chair and went to Mei to see if she had any injuries from that fall. "Mei-chan, are you okay?!" Y/n bent down to her level, grabbing her shoulders to check if she's alright.
"I'll be fine..." Mei reassured while rubbing her head. She saw the other version of herself, holding a rapier on one hand getting ready to strike the next attack. "You're..."
But you’ll never know
Unless you walk in my shoes
You’ll never know…
…how my laces are tangled
‘Cause everybody sees
What they wanna see
It’s easier to judge me than to believe
-----
loraine's note:
we got some new information ya all~ someone's memories appeared in y/n's mind and y/n has a less than an hour left to live, comment your theories~ there might be a chance that i wouldn't be able to update later, i have a date :>