Takemura Itsuki

“I gotta talk to her, no? I gotta fulfill his last wish, at last.”

“Yeah, I gotta narrate that story to Ichika.”

I remembered the first time I had seen Ichika after days. I remembered looking at her dark face and skin on top of her pink and white sleeveless shirt as she had a knife in her right hand. She was smiling. My eyes were leaking water. I was sitting on the doorsteps, and she stood right in front of me, looking down at me confusedly.

***

“And… BEGIN!”

The two of us quickly took our swords out of our scabbards and clashed them at each other vertically. Then, I pushed his sword back with a jerk and jumped back.

“This one’s for you, Haruto…”

***

Shiratori Haruto

My head was tilted down. I was walking quietly through the narrow plain road filled with houses on either side. The houses had little courtyards with trees which were visible on the other side of the varying walls. I had my hands in my pocket, my bag hanging on my back. I was wearing my usual black and white uniform with black shoes. I then turned my head to the front, looking at the road in the front. “I feel like I’ve worked hard for this damned peace, but… what work did I refer to?” I thought, my eyes fixed on the front. “I feel like somewhere inside, I still know what had happened to me, and that’s what makes me anxious. But, you know, it’s… not in my main memory, maybe, or something like that.” I then turned my eyeballs a little to my left, noticing the green field which was approaching some steps away filled with the green grass visible at the edge. “Well, I did try to think hard about it, but just pressuring myself to remember isn’t helping. I just remember in bits, and… I just know that there was someone by the name Takemura Itsuki. But… I don’t remember anything else.”

Just as I was brainstorming, I had reached the plain field on my left and was walking just beside it. I soon turned my head to my left, looking at the green field filled with green shining grass beneath. I then turned a little to the front and noticed a well some steps further away, deep inside the green fields. It was covered with green algae all around and was just on the verge of its breakdown. Its metal pulley was rusted brown, its stone bricks wet and filled with algae. Just as I was looking at it, I soon remembered three kids—two boys and a girl—running around the field, with the black girl having a game cassette in her right hand. She was happily giggling with her eyes closed as she ran. The two other boys were smiling as they ran behind her, their hands raised at her as they tried to catch her. “Ahahahahaha!” The feminine giggling echoed in my ears.

“Ahahahhahahaa!”

SNAP!

I kept on glaring at the well as I walked past it, dozens of steps away from it. Just as I was parallel to it, my shoes stopped walking, and stood silent on the narrow street. As I was glaring at the well, I suddenly remembered the figure of a guy with his right leg fixated on top of the brink of the well, his eyes glaring down, and his hands on the brink just in front of his chest.

“A leap of faith… that we took that day…” My lips murmured on their own. “I… What happened that day?”

TRING-TRINGGG!

I turned my head to the back, noticing a woman in a pink cycle cycling toward me. I then turned my head to the front, and continued walking.

“What… did I just remember?”

***

Takemura Itsuki

CLASH! CLASH! WHOOSH!

I jumped back again, my uninterested eyes fixed on the guy in front of me. We were just in between the amphitheater, which had turned silent and serious. The audience was completely silent, with all of the eyes fixed right at the center. Tadashi held his sword horizontally in front of his waist in his right hand as he looked at me with his determined eyes. His legs were bent and he was ready for any attack. I stood straight, with clouds of dust rising up until my knees. “On another thought, I feel like it’s been fucking weeks since we’ve talked to each other as friends, having fun with each other. She’s just too busy in that damned restaurant all day. How the heck can she even work all day long as a waitress?”

I suddenly remembered the two of us laughing as we stood facing each other on the perfectly normal sunny day. The two of us stood at one corner of the empty ground, both of us laughing with our eyes closed.

“She’s taught me a lot, and she’s been with me for a long time. We were together since the time we were five, perhaps.”

I remembered the image of the little Haruto and me running behind her as she ran around the well in that empty field filled with green lush.

“But we never really spent all this time together, right? And… I can’t fucking believe she’s lost all of her memory of her being isekai’d here.”

I tilted my head a little down. “Will she see me in the same light if I tell her how she was isekai’d here? Will she still… consider me as an alliance, as a friend?” I turned my head to the front again, looking at Tadashi still standing about a dozen steps away from me, looking at me as he panted, his sword vertically stationed at his front. I tightened my fist on the handle of my sword. “First, I gotta get this dumbfuck.”