Beautiful Days: Da Capo (IC)

[Siriel]

Yuki Ren
Shinjuku LOFT

Oh so it really is her? Dammit I should ask for an autograph, but well it's kind of weird.

My throat feels extremely tight. I gulp. "What's wrong?" A completely normal response. I still want to leave. I don't want to hear her answer. Yet, I feel as though my feet are stuck to the ground.

I'm pretty sure I know what's wrong but is there a good way to say it? Hm, maybe...ugh, why won't me head stop hurting? This sucks.

"Weren't you dead?"

The words slip out before I can catch them. Oh well, that's probably hte best I can manage with this headache anyway.

[Katie]

Shikinami Karin
Samurai Museum

She knows this museum. She’s been there quite a few times, for no other reason than it’s a museum, and therefore devoted to the preservation of knowledge. She wasn’t very interested in the glorified bloodshed of the past, but it was something worth learning about. If anything, it was a casual ice breaker, something she could bring up to inflate her own ego.

She isn’t very sure about how that girl doesn’t know how she’s on top of this vending machine, and this piques her curiosity, but before she can act on any hunches, she spots another man dangling from the roof. Someone in their own, confused circumstance, just like her.

Not very eager to get off the vending machine (it was quite comfortable, surprisingly) she waves, checking the crowd as she does so.

Someone had to notice this, correct?

[Lace]

Ayumi Fu
Shinjuku LOFT

"Weren't you dead?"

In an instance, my eyes widen as pictures start flashing in my head. I was meeting with him, I even put on a pretty dress and got all fancy. He wanted to sing for me, but it didn't come to that, because we left the loft when it got too crowded. Secrecy was never our strongest point. The next picture. We're in a cab and things are getting heated. I flaked. I didn't want to do this all over again, not after everything I had gone through. Music was the focus of my life again and I couldn't let myself get distracted.

I remember getting out of the cab and walking the whole way back to my apartment by feet. It was late, and the streets were mostly empty. Everyone was either at home or in bars, too busy to be a nuisance for me. Then . . .I made it home. That's why I'm standing here. I made it home safely.

"Who are you? What do you want from me?" Taking a defensive step backwards, my stern glare rests on Yuki.

[Siriel]

Ayumi Fu
Shinjuku LOFT

In an instance, my eyes widen as pictures start flashing in my head. I was meeting with him, I even put on a pretty dress and got all fancy. He wanted to sing for me, but it didn't come to that, because we left the loft when it got too crowded. Secrecy was never our strongest point. The next picture. We're in a cab and things are getting heated. I flaked. I didn't want to do this all over again, not after everything I had gone through. Music was the focus of my life again and I couldn't let myself get distracted.

I remember getting out of the cab and walking the whole way back to my apartment by feet. It was late, and the streets were mostly empty. Everyone was either at home or in bars, too busy to be a nuisance for me. Then . . .I made it home. That's why I'm standing here. I made it home safely.

"Who are you? What do you want from me?" Taking a defensive step backwards, my stern glare rests on Yuki.

Yuki Ren
Shinjuku LOFT

"Hm? Oh, right! How rude of me!" I bowed my head apologetically. "My name's Ren, I'm a huge fan! Which is why I was really bummed to hear you were dead, but now you're here!"

I'm not sure what my name has to do with her being reported as dead though. Maybe she's just confused?

[Kirby]

Alex Kisaragi & “Sho”
​Kabukicho Streets

You’ve been here before… right?

The three of you walk, one jaunty, one casual, and one suspicious. An odd crowd, but no one looks your way. Well, you’ve almost gotten used to it by now. The boy introduces himself as Goto.

"Well, are you invisible? Because you don't look it to me. You're perfectly normal and perfectly human, so you're alive, right? 'Being seen' is a state of mind, not a necessity. We're all invisible in our own way, but right now none of us are. Maybe you just thought you were?"

Goto looks at you, brow furrowed, and talks as he walks. “Dunno. It’s just, I dunno, weird? Everyone I’ve tried to talk to just walks on by. Not even like ignoring it or anything, but like they can’t hear or some shit.” He sighs. He was waving the stick around as he talked, like he’d forgotten he was holding it. “Ugh I don’t know this area. How’d I even get here? I— huh.”

He pauses. You do too, if only to follow.

The streets are utterly littered with bars and the like, with clubs and karaoke pubs, restaurants and storefronts. It’s more open here, a far cry from the alleyways at Golden Gai. If you looked hard enough, you suppose there’d probably be a brothel here somewhere, though, being broad daylight, good luck finding it.

But now, it’s busy, men and women filtering in and out of restaurants, chatting and walking and so on. Some girls hang out by a bar, a family walks about a restaurant, some schoolkids mill about a vending machine, the works.

Goto blinks. He seems surprised. “It’s busy, huh?”

[Lace]

Ayumi Fu
Shinjuku LOFT

"My name's Ren, I'm a huge fan! Which is why I was really bummed to hear you were dead, but now you're here!"

I wince when I hear those words. "Tch! Stop messing with me already! I'm not- I mean, I never was dead!" My voice is harsh, but I can't help not caring about something like politeness in a situation like this. I keep taking steps backwards, albeit slowly. "Listen, this has to be some kind of mistake. Maybe someone who looked like me died, I, I don't know, but I have to go. I'm sorry, I'll go crazy if I stay here."

I'll just get my phone out and. . . Oh, that's right. I don't have my phone. Shit. It's ok, I can always ask someone—

That's the first time I really look at the people around me. They're not even showing the slightest reaction to the conversation that just took place. That goes further than minding your own business. It's as if we're non-existent. Standing there, I look at my surroundings mouth agape. "Am I already going crazy?"

[Rafflesiac]

Alex Kisaragi
Kabukicho Streets

”It’s busy, huh?”

I blink. It’s the same old Shinjuku, even now; people going about their day, loitering, walking, eating, laughing, going about their day. Even without me.

“What day is it now, anyways? I wanna know how long I was out; I’ve got family worried about me and all.” Though if Dad could see me’s an entirely different matter. He’s gotta be so worried about me, after Mom. And what about Ami too, she must be-

One thing at a time, Alex.

I walk to the nearest news booth in search of a newspaper. But as I do, I can’t help but wonder. I’m obviously not the only person in this situation, so how many people are there? And what are the odds of meeting someone else?

Specifically, someone who knows what’s going on?

[Kirby]

Shikinami Karin
Samurai Museum

No one notices. Welp.

Actually, that’s not quite right. The crowd doesn’t notice at all, and the girl who bought the coffee or drink or whatever goes on her way, not giving you a second glance. They ignore you completely. It’s like you’re not even here.

The boy, on the other hand, does. He sees you wave, and you see his face run through a virtual kaleidoscope of emotions, of surprise, of relief, of sudden embarrassment at his situation. He shifts his position, sits up a little straighter, and makes eye contact with you. Perhaps to retain as much dignity as one could, when they find themselves stranded on a roof for some reason or another.

He waves. He loses his balance. He falls off the roof, smack-dab onto the pavement.

And no one bats an eye.

[Kirby]

Ayumi Fu & Yuki Ren
Shinjuku LOFT

"Am I already going crazy?"

Ayumi didn’t know, anymore.

It’s not true, is it? She can’t be dead; she wouldn’t be here if you were. But no one sees her, just these two strangers. Yuki looks at her innocently, almost excited to be in your presence. Looking at the other girl, whose name neither of you know, she simply turns her head away, sullen and uncomfortable. You know she’s thinking the same thing as Yuki. It’s practically written all over her face. She simply couldn’t say it.

No one sees them, either, Yuki and the strange-looking girl. So why are you three the only ones who can see each other?

You look around. Ads of all kinds blare from all directions, bright and noisy, posters of celebrities and idols and everyone. Ayumi is no where to be found in any of them. It seemed like a lifetime ago when she used to be everywhere.

The noise of the crowd is deafening. It irritates you; you want it to stop, to shut up, to give you just a moment of peace as you try to figure out what’s going on. Absently, you make a move to take out your phone, but remember it’s not there. Your pockets are empty. You feel them empty; everything is gone.

No, that’s not right. You feel something cold and metallic, something small. Cold, even when it's so hot outside. You grab onto it, simply because there was nothing else. From your pocket, you retrieve an eerie, metal pin.

[Frantic Author]

Alex Kisaragi & “Sho”
​Kabukicho Streets


"Calm down for a moment," I say, a smile half-crossing my face, "I'll check for you."


I reach my hand into my pocket, and feel around for my phone, my fingers brushing against something else as well; but I ignore it for now. Pulling out my phone, I flip it open and see a date. A frown crosses my face temporarily, because the date seems...


Off.


It's incorrect. It's not the date that I remember, personally, but that's fine. I can just show it to him in an instant - it's not like it's that big of deal, after all.


"See? Just breathe."


But the weight in my pocket... it bothers me.


It bothers me immensely. So I move my free hand, looking down for a moment, and pull it out as I drop a shard of a mirror inside of it.

A pin.


I don't remember being a collector or anything, and the eerie, skull-like shape on it is... Odd. It's not something I'd expect to carry around myself, not with that sort of death's head on it. But it's interesting, in a way - and interesting things are something I can't ignore, even if I don't recognize it. But why?


Why do I have it? This is more the sort of thing for my... My...


My eyes look at it. I don't know what it is.

But I'm not getting rid of it.

[arkturus]

Komata Itsuki
Kabukicho South

As my conscious comes to I slowly become aware of my surroundings.

A donut shop.

A Mister Donut, specifically. A hip, relatively new restaurant that serves a variety of the round baked good that it is named after. I had been meaning to check it out but I had been busy recently. My normally leisure walk home after school had been occupied, not because I was in any club activities but I because I rushed home every day for the past month to write. I was busy pouring my blood, sweat, and tears into a manuscript to turn in for an amateur writing competition. And so my time to goof around outside has been extremely limited lately meaning that there was no room to stop for any snacks.

And yet I'm here.

For some reason. Inexplicably.

I don't remember ever setting foot in this store or even buying a donut for that matter. All I remember was crossing the street and....

Well. There's no way that could've happened.

Must've been day dreaming or something. Maybe I just walked in without thinking it and bought a snack out of habit or something.

Sighing and accepting the new circumstances, I exited the doors before stuffing part of the donut into my mouth. I glanced around at the hustle and bustle of the crowd until I spotted her. A young girl was looking at me. If not for the fact that her eyes were focused on me I probably would've also ignored her completely. And her expressions. As I watched her, her face slowly morphed from a look of confusion to one of panic. Before I knew it she had slipped into the busy crowd.

I'm not sure why but for some reason that image struck me somehow. The image of a young girl running off, through busy streets of rushing objects.

It filled me with a sort of anxiety.

"H-hey wait!" I cried out and chased after her without thinking, half-eaten donut in hand.

[Rafflesiac]

Alex Kisaragi
Kabukicho Streets

“Calm down for a moment. I'll check for you.”

“Thanks.” Why hadn’t I thought about checking my phone? On instinct, I slide my phone partially out of my pocket - and then my eyes catch on the dark screen. Even there, I see a pale white reflection.

I slide the phone back into my pocket and look at Sho’s.

“What the hell?”

The date’s off; way off. Just how long was I out? I open my mouth to say something, I don’t know what, and then stop. Sho’s staring at something. It’s completely unrecognizable, yet intimately familiar. There’s a cold weight I hadn’t registered before.

Instinctively, I reach into my left pocket and pull out something.

A pin.

[Kirby]

Komata Itsuki
Kabukicho South

You chase her through the streets. Why? You don’t know. It was something to do, so you did it.

You weave through the crowd, but they pay you no mind. No one seemed to have noticed her disappearing, or seen where she had gone, so you can only just run aimlessly into the streets, to where you think she last disappeared. As you run through the crowd, you bump into a man, and are knocked onto the ground. As you instinctively apologize, you realize something’s wrong.

The man doesn’t notice you at all. He keeps on walking, as if nothing had happened. Hell, had you not fallen yourself, you wouldn’t even be sure that anything had happened. No one notices. No one even looks your way.

You keep running, and see her in the crowd. She’s standing alone. She looks your way.

Come to think of it, she seems to be the only one who noticed your fall.

Your eyes meet. She sees you. You see her. She runs into an alleyway and disappears around the corner.

As you follow her into the alley, you find her there turned, waiting for you.

“Who are you?”

[Katie]

Shikinami Karin
Samurai Museum

It’s strange. Rather, her own reaction is rather strange, because it’s quite callous and cold. The thought of seeing a death of a person with her own eyes is almost intriguing, something interesting. But instantly her consciousness drags her down with guilt, and the real question remained, amidst all the uncouth and heartless curiosities that had been briefly piqued.

Is he alive?

Without any hesitance, she scoots herself off the vending machine, almost a bit disturbed by the lack of anyone else’s reactions. It’s not even the bystander effect, because nobody noticed. This was not willful indecision, but rather a level of ignorance that the common man did not possess. Such an incident should already be drawing heads…

Worried about the boy who had noticed her, she combs through her mind for anything about basic first aid. While action was not really her forte, doing nothing in this situation would be considered a cruelty.

And she did not believe herself to be cruel, even if her words were sharp.

[Kirby]

Alex Kisaragi & “Sho”
​Kabukicho Streets

In your hands, you hold a pin.

It’s a small thing, cold and heavy in your hands even in the summer heat, adorned with a faintly familiar design. Familiar how, you can’t remember. But it’s familiar nonetheless.

It’s mesmerizing to stare at. As you look, you hear voices, whispers, shouting. Demons? No, not demons. They’re voices, and not your own, but they’re utterly ordinary things. They don’t speak to you. They speak to themselves—

“—he’s late. Goddamn, he’s late again, how many times do I have to—”

“—ugh, those tickets, way more expensive than last year, but I swore I’d go—”

“—she’s cute, oh god, she’s cute, don’t look her way, wait shit we made eye contact—”

Sho blinks. He’s the first to come to his senses, and realizes he’s still holding his phone. He turns to Alex, and Goto as he looks over his shoulder, and reads out.

“July, 2nd. 2020.”

—Wait, what?

That’s not right. That’s definitely not. It was the middle of June, you could’ve sworn that was true. You blink. The date doesn’t change. The little numbers on the screen simply flicker, as if solidifying the reality of the situation. You fall silent. All of you do. Only Goto has words to spare.

“...What the hell?”

[Kirby]

Shikinami Karin
Samurai Museum

The boy lies face down on the ground. There’s a bit of blood trickling across the pavement.

You get off the vending machine, to no one’s surprise or interest, of course, and make your way over to the boy. His fall didn’t draw heads. No one batted an eye, no one even tried to ignore it. It’s like they couldn’t see him there in the first place. And, of course, no one cares that you just jumped off either.

You don’t have anything on you that could help, other than maybe ripping off a bit of cloth as a bandage, but to hell with that. You instead kneel by the boy, a short distance away, scrutinizing the body for signs of life.

Well, he’s breathing at least.

You stare at him. Maybe it’s fun or fascinating to look at, or maybe you hadn’t anything else to do. But you stare. And suddenly, he stirs.

He jumps back onto his feet, brushing off his clothes. His nose is bleeding. His forehead is too. You’re not sure he notices that.

“Ha ha, ahh… well then,” he says, laughing nervously, muttering something about ‘embarrassing’ and ‘messed up’. He stands awkwardly by the vending machine, as you stare him down, looking about and refusing to meet your gaze. Eventually, as if he’s had enough, he looks at you.

“Well, er… hi?”

[Frantic Author]

Alex Kisaragi & “Sho”
​Kabukicho Streets

Voices.

Voices roam through my mind.

And they're not of my own. They're not of my sisters. They're not of my brother. I can't help but listen in, hearing the fleeting thoughts of... something for a moment.

"I can't believe I failed that math test, it looked so easy!"

"Where's that movie theater again... Scramble?"

"That kid's got a funny outfit on. His date's gonna ditch him in a heartbeat."

People.

People thinking things that aren't my own thoughts.

I somehow am looking into the minds of others. I put the pin away, shaking myself free of it, just as Goto reads the date.

“July, 2nd. 2020.”

Record scratch. That's not the day I remember, and it sure as hell isn't when I think it is.

“...What the hell?” Goto says, and I can't help but agree, at least part of me. But still, I grin and look at them.

"Collective dream, maybe? Nah. If this far's gone, and nobody's pointing at us... I bet someone just messed with our phones while we were out. Shake us up a little." I put my phone away, running a hand through brown hair. "Weird, though. Whatever, it's probably not that big a deal."

...I'm not going to point out the larger deal.

I don't have any new messages on my phone. Not a one. And I can't imagine my sisters would let me vanish for more then a few hours without even trying. This is... a problem. A serious problem. This could have serious repercussions on my social life if even my sisters aren't messaging me. Even if they are a bit absentminded, this isn't the sort of thing that slips their air-filled heads.

"Just ignore it. It's not important. Let's see if we can find anyone else who can actually see us first."

[Mooncake]

Komatsu Irahara
Kabukicho Streets

I adjusted my glasses, staring at that strange boy. What was he thinking? I knew this game would never end if we didn't move now...

I-

Emptily-

Like a glass glass moon-

Breaking-

Poetically-

Threw a rock at 「Sho」

His head-

I-

Threw the rock