[ touches his head... he's still trying to sort it all out. ]
Kuremi-san and I had jobs beta testing some video game. We made the player character, and it looked just like Matsuoka, for some reason. And Red - Ylfa - and Amelia were in the game, too, all in the baking club. The game was really weird, though. It kept crashing, and there was this weird message at one point? Then the computer started doing things on its own.
The game called it a "special recipe," but it wasn't a recipe at all. It was just begging for help and to notice them. It didn't even say who it was from.
I... wouldn't say that? After we played for a little while, something happened and the computer started just... deleting characters. Amelia was one of the first, but we were on the list too, somehow.
Deleting? [Thank goodness Kaveh has learned some basic knowledge of normal computers in his time here, so he can visualize this a little better.] Did she just vanish?
It's... a little hard to explain. I'm not sure I totally understand. But I think we were in a game, too? Don't ask me how that works, but we were on the character list when things started getting deleted.
We had these lives there. At first I was just an intern doing the beta testing, but once it reset, I... I was a famous musician, in a band with Isshiki-san, and Akito was composing music for us, just like I always pictured. Even my family was there, supporting my dream - and they'd never do that.
[ a weak laugh. ]
The biggest difference was that I'd known Alex forever. She lived next door, and we were friends since we were little - both before the reset and after. Ichika would ask about her every day, and cook extra just in case she came over, because she did that all the time. We even had copies of each other's house keys so we could let ourselves in.
[Gently, carefully, Kaveh reaches out, putting a hand on Kazuki's arm.]
It'll wear off soon. [He can't promise that things will be okay, because anything can happen during the night. Not for the first time, he hates that they're helpless to intervene.] We'll look out for you in the meantime.
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ohthehumanities) wrote2023-06-10 01:04 pm
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I will.
...Did you... see other people, too? On your, um. Mission.
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Yes. Shu, Jonas, and Shenhe--we believed they were there with us.
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Kaveh nods, sympathetic and understanding.]
What happened?
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[ touches his head... he's still trying to sort it all out. ]
Kuremi-san and I had jobs beta testing some video game. We made the player character, and it looked just like Matsuoka, for some reason. And Red - Ylfa - and Amelia were in the game, too, all in the baking club. The game was really weird, though. It kept crashing, and there was this weird message at one point? Then the computer started doing things on its own.
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A weird message?
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That's disturbing.
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Strange... but you got Ylfa and Amelia out?
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It felt a bit like that toward the end for us, too. [Though he'd had Shenhe to fill in the gaps, then.] Was Alex in the game too?
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Uh... yeah. She was the one I saw. How did you...?
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[If she was in the game and he wasn't? Or maybe he was???]
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We had these lives there. At first I was just an intern doing the beta testing, but once it reset, I... I was a famous musician, in a band with Isshiki-san, and Akito was composing music for us, just like I always pictured. Even my family was there, supporting my dream - and they'd never do that.
[ a weak laugh. ]
The biggest difference was that I'd known Alex forever. She lived next door, and we were friends since we were little - both before the reset and after. Ichika would ask about her every day, and cook extra just in case she came over, because she did that all the time. We even had copies of each other's house keys so we could let ourselves in.
She was always there.
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...Those kinds of things are worse than the physical pain, I think. [He admits that, after a moment.] It's a cruel thing to play with people's hearts.
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[ he stares down at his bandaged hands, holding this hot chocolate. it feels warm, like it should. ]
But none of it was real. And now... really hard to tell what is. It feels like everything is going to fall apart again, just like it did after she...
[ he trails off, shaking his head. ]
...You're probably right. It's cruel. Not worth it.
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It'll wear off soon. [He can't promise that things will be okay, because anything can happen during the night. Not for the first time, he hates that they're helpless to intervene.] We'll look out for you in the meantime.
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Just as long as there aren't any more sacrifices.