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Leaving Tonight • The Neighbourhood
! AUTHORS NOTE !
i'm at grandma's house... you know what that means. WRITING ALL DAY AND NIGHT! though i'll probably be keeping most chapters to myself and try to keep a relatively steady daily posting this week. maybe you'll get 2 chapters on the same day if i'm in a silly mood
! AUTHORS WARNING !
this is soooort of a filler chapter, but very necessary for the next one. so, no warnings! yippee! trying to ease you into the shit you'll read in the next one because OH BOY!
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➸ "Damn, that's bright." You mumbled to yourself while shielding your eyes from the bright outdoors, giving yourself time to blink your eyes a few times. It was morning, and the sun show right into your eyes from the hospital window, waking you up much earlier than you intended to. But, it's not like you could go back to sleep, so you got up from the uncomfortable chair. You stretched your arms out and looked down at Chishiya, who didn't show signs of waking up anytime soon.
He must be really tired, you thought to yourself, walking across the room to open up a cabinet. You hadn't forgotten about losing your memory journal just yet, as you made sure to not let it slip past you until you had the time to go search for it. And so, the perfect opportunity was presented in front of you; Chishiya in a relatively safe location, still allowing you to slip past him before he noticed. Still, if he did wake up before you came back, you wanted to save him from the panic of your disappearance, hence why you grabbed a notepad and pen from one of the cabinets.
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Before you storm out of the room, I'm fine. I left my journal at the Teio Prison, sorry for not telling you sooner. You're mad at me, I know, but I can't live without that journal, it's the only thing I have left of who I was. I don't expect you to understand, but if you're not going to tell me how we knew each other in the past, then this is my last resort.
Get more ice from the staff lounge behind the reception desk if your ice pack already melted.
- Doctor Chinen
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You clicked your pen and tossed it to the side, ripping the piece of paper from the rest and placing it on the table underneath the cloth, making sure it isn't swept away by some random gust of wind. You gave Chishiya one last look, making sure he was still breathing, and then took off out of the room. You didn't bring anything but a pocket knife, as the journey was short but not short enough to eliminate the chances of running into trouble.
You didn't find yourself nervous on what's ahead of you on your side quest, as taking care of Chishiya for a few hours had matured you in a way. Who knew that dodging bullets by a hair, carrying an injured man who would've died if you weren't there, helping the shoulder of said-man, and suturing the same man's wound with a damn sewing needle and thread from a grandmother's hospital room, would make you finally man-up to your new world? Damn, maybe it's time you gave yourself a pat on the back every once in a while.
You pushed open the main doors of the hospital and headed straight towards the alleyway Chishiya lead you both through, trying to remember the way to the Jack of Hearts game center as best as possible. It took you a while, but you made it to where you and Chishiya came across the King of Spades, seeing the same car you both hid behind. It had bullet holes on the side of it, dents and scratches from when you dove against it.
However, when you looked up from the out of commission vehicle and both ways on the street, that's where your luck ran out. Which way did you and Chishiya come from that day?
You weighed out your three options, able to eliminate one of them as you faintly remember seeing the King of Spades enter through that side of the street. Now, you're left with two, and have no clues or second-opinions from a condescending blonde beside you. Shit, maybe you should've just waited for Chishiya to wake up, what were you thinking?—
"Hey!" A booming voice echoed through the trashed city, making you turn in all sorts of directions. Not knowing where it came from, you frantically scanned every inch of the streets, hand hovering over your pocket knife in your back pocket. "Excuse me." A guy with his hands up came from out of a different alleyway, just a few meters away from you.
"Who are you?" Your heartbeat slowed down, yet guard still stood high around your figure, too focused to blink.
"Wait," He continued to walk to you, but finally dropped his hands down to his sides. "You don't remember me?" You were silent, suddenly embarrassed at your rude impression of an unarmed man. He finally got close enough for you to see his face, he had dirt sprayed all over his body covering old blood seeping in his green shirt.
"I'm afraid not," Your defensive stance softened, taking your hand away from your disguised knife. "Have we met?"
"Met?" He laughed into the polluted air, making you nervously smile in response. "We were in the same survival group at the beginning of all this!"
You were shocked; just how many people have you forgotten in your past in this world? You considered yourself to be a loner all this time, but now you've encountered two people who you've made a good enough impression on for them to remember later down the road.
Still shaken up, you relaxed your shoulders. "I see! Sorry I didn't recognize you, it feels like we've been trapped here forever and the days go by in a blur, you know?"
"Oh yeah, I understand," He took a few steps closer, now more comfortable having the mutual familiarity. "It was so long ago, and the group all went their separate ways. It happens, we're all just trying to survive."
A long silence followed his sentence, until he clapped his hands together. "So, where you headed all by yourself?"
"Oh," You popped your head up, "I left something important at one of the games I participated in, and I wanted to look for it."
"I see, I see," He nodded along, piecing the picture together as your conversation progressed. "Had to have been a face card game, yeah? That's all I see around here. Which one was it, might I ask?" The man had to be much older than you, as his voice, appearance, and mannerisms were very old fashioned, though that's the best you could describe it as.
Still, you smiled graciously. "Jack of Hearts."
"Oh wow," His eyes went wide at your response, "A Hearts game, bold choice. That one was at the Teio Prison, correct? I could accompany you there, if you'd like."
"Yeah— but are you sure?" You anxiously held your hands out in front of you, fiddling with your thumbs. It's not like you got some bad feeling from him, but you didn't know him whatsoever. Well, to be fair, you didn't know Chishiya either, and he's the closest person you could consider a friend. Yet, this scenario just felt different, but then again, that might be your newfound rise of maturity and self-awareness level talking.
Nonetheless, his smile seemed sweet from what you could tell. "Of course! It's been a while since I've met a friendly face, not to mention a familiar one." He pointed down the street he came from, "It's not too far from here, just at the end of that street."
You sighed in relief as you walked close behind him, grateful that he knew where your destined location was. The stroll was quiet, surprisingly, as you expected him to be at your ear with all sorts of questions. Then again, you expected to be the exact same way with him, asking all about the group you were in back then. However, you didn't have the urge to whatsoever, not because you feared what he'd say but because the information was indifferent to you. Which is ironic to admit as the only reason why you were out of the hospital was to find the only remains of your past, you still didn't care to find out how things turned out to be with that abandoned group. The man said it himself, everyone went their separate ways, so was it really that important to begin with?
"It's just up ahead." The man pointed at the far away building, you squinted your eyes to picture it clearly. You were relieved to see the building, for once, as it still seemed to be relatively intact despite a blimp blowing up over it. Other than the leftover rubble and debris from the explosion, it was just like how you left it.
You nodded at him and kept following him, a bit confused as to why he's still leading you to it. You thought that he'd just point it out to you and part ways, but he felt the need to take you all the way to the front door. The journey was still as quiet as ever too, so it wasn't that he wanted to ask more about you and your story after he last saw you. Was he just being a gentleman or something?
You were too busy caught up in your thoughts to realize that you had made it all the way to the building until the man stopped walking. You watched him open the door and stand off to the side, "After you." You've forgotten nearly everything about yourself and the world before the Borderlands, but you thought you knew that chivalry was dead. The elder man invited you into the prison with a welcoming smile, making you hard to resist taking up his offer.
"Thank you for everything, really." You walked ahead of him and into Teio Prison, hearing the door shut behind you. "Y'know, after all of this, I still didn't catch your name. Could you remind me, just this once?"
"Don't matter," His tone took a drastic change, sounding more casual rather than formal. "Not like you'd oughta remember it, anyway."
Confused, you whipped your head around to face him, but didn't could get far enough to see the new man behind you, who hit you with a heavy metal object. The metal crashing onto the back of your skull made a horrible ringing noise, adding onto the headache you gained from the attack. Your body felt lightweight, seeing yourself slowly falling to the concrete ground until your vision went black.
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THANK YOU FOR READING!