Hey, I'm still alive! Feels like forever since I've uploaded anything.
This is a one-shot for Okakuri Week. Man, I need to write happier things.
It doesn't really contain spoilers for the game/anime, but if you haven't played/watched it 1. Why are you even reading this 2. Go play/watch it (preferably both), it's absolutely fantastic.
Forget
The air was warm and dry when she woke up. Worse yet, her body felt heavy, in part due to the weight pressed against her chest, two arms wrapped around her back although she didn't know whose they were. It was soothing in a way, and it gave her an excuse to ignore the buzzing inside her head, so she stayed put even if only for a moment.
"Are you awake?" She heard a soft girlish voice, and the body hugging hers slowly retracted.
Finally opening her eyes, she took a glance around, trying to situate herself. She seemed to be sitting on a green couch, inside a dusty but well-lit room, full of electronics scattered around. Sitting by her side was a dark-haired girl with thick eyebrows and cheeks streaked with tears. Across the coffee table standing ahead were two men, one of enormous size and the other slim and tall, with a lab coat accentuating his thin form even further. There was concern in their faces.
"Where am I?"
The tall man was the one who answered. "Where you belong, my experiment-loving assistant! The Future Gadget Lab!" His tone was overly emphasized, like he was trying to sound more confident than he actually was.
"Huh?"
"You were working on the PhoneWave, and you just fell down on the floor, and then you wouldn't wake up!" The girl stared at her directly and with pleading eyes. "Mayushii was so worried about you, Kurisu!"
"Kurisu? Who's…that?" The name felt familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.
The room froze. All three of them were staring dumbfoundedly at her, and in the passing of a second she understood. She was Kurisu. That was her name. It made sense, the only logical conclusion to what she was hearing and seeing, but she simply couldn't remember.
"Who…are you?"
Their faces distorted even further in despair. Were they her friends? Family? She didn't remember her parents, or if she had any siblings at all. Maybe co-workers? Or maybe classmates, how old was she even? The buzzing inside her skull evolved into an unbearable thumping. She pressed her hands against her temple, but it did little to alleviate the pain.
Out the corner of her eye she saw the girl rush to hug her again, but was stopped by the man in a lab coat. "It's okay, Mayuri. She hit her head really hard, she just needs some air."
Mayuri pouted and protested, but let go. She fiddled with her fingers impatiently, still visibly unsettled. It stung a little, making Kurisu want to appease the poor girl. They were friends. Even if the memories eluded her, it was obvious that they were close in some way.
"Maybe that's best." She stood up as firmly she could, and wobbled her way to the door. Or so she thought.
"The exit is the other way." The slender boy grabbed her shoulder and pushed it back, proceeding to guide her outside.
After climbing down a set of stairs, they sat on the bench in front of the Braun Tube Workshop. It was hardly colder outside, but the soft breeze still felt good against her face. It was all she could focus on to try to wish away the headache.
"I'm so sorry."
"Huh?" She turned to look at him, sitting next to her. His expression was downcast and sullen, a look that didn't fit him well at all.
"This is all my fault, Christina. I shouldn't have messed with what I didn't understand."
"You…what? I don't understand anything you're saying. Also, who's Christina? I thought my name was… oh, clever pun, are you proud of yourself for that one?"
He smiled, albeit briefly. "You really don't remember anything, do you?"
Kurisu shook her head.
"Where do I begin…"
"Your name."
"Oh, right. I'm Hou… Okabe. Okabe Rintarou." He quickly corrected himself with an even more regretful tone. What was going with this man and his tormented protagonist routine?
"Well, Okabe Rintarou, start talking."
Back inside the lab, she stared unbelievingly at the ridiculous gadget in front of her, the headache only worsening.
"This has to be a joke. A time machine?" It was utterly stupid. Complete nonsense. But, worst of all, the parts that would be needed to make one were all there. "What do you use as a lifter?"
"The CRT screen downstairs." He sounded so confident, so sure of this thing he had built. How was that possible? Was he some sort of genius cooped up a hidden lab for no reason?
"And this is related to my memories somehow."
"Yes. It's… we're calling it Temporal Cognitive Dissonance. Your memories don't match up with the body you inhabit right now…"
"Because of world line switching." Pieces were starting to line up, somewhat, despite the stiff demeanor with which he delivered the explanation, like he was just reciting a pre-written script.
"Exactly. So, your brain refuses the memories altogether, leaving you like this." Okabe placed a hand on her head, but she shooed him away immediately. How dare he be so condescending? Also, why did it feel like her cheeks were burning?
"So, how do we fix it?"
He didn't answer. Not with words anyway, but his expression told her more than enough.
"You don't know. How can you not know? All those explanations, and you haven't even come up with an idea for a cure?" Anger was bubbling inside her, rising heat all the way up to her face. It wasn't his fault, she knew that, yelling at him wasn't going to fix anything, but she felt incomplete, and right now indignation was all she had.
"I…" He turned his face away from hers, in a clear mix of embarrassment and guilt. "I didn't come up with any of the explanations. You did."
Okabe sighed, letting out a bitter chuckle. It took her a moment, but then she realized what he meant.
"This isn't the first time we've had this conversation, is it?"
He shook his head.
"So, what, you've been going back in time repeatedly trying to fix me?" Why? I don't even know you. What was she to him? To those people in the adjacent room? "How many?"
"Seventeen. This is cycle eighteen." Seventeen times he had repeated those words to her, trying in vain to get the Kurisu he knew back.
How much could one man take? How close was he to breaking? All those tortured expressions he made were starting to make sense. All of this for her, from a man she didn't know. From where did he get all that strength?
"Well, then at least you must've figured out the cause, right?"
"Oh that. Yeah, you… used the time leap machine."
"I did what?" He only nodded at her shocked tone. "Human trials without a stable final product, what was I thinking?"
"The machine works perfectly, it wasn't your fault…"
"It does? The why d… oh, it's that Reading Steiner thing, isn't it?"
Okabe nodded yet again. "It's fine with small things, but if you leap back to change anything major… you can't keep your memories. I wish I could tell you why."
Grabbing the lab coat hanging on the nearby shelf, she began considering the options available. There had to be a way out of this predicament, and by the looks of it she had to be the one to come up with it.
"I'm guessing stopping me using it doesn't work."
"No, you end up doing it anyway."
Right, timeline convergence… and stubbornness.
"And you can't go back to the timeline where I don't use the time leap because of Mayuri. Destroying the machine could work, but then again, you wouldn't have a way back in case it didn't."
He was still watching her expectantly. Jeez, help out a little! How useless can you be?
"Well, what if instead of going back to the previous line, you moved further away?" It wasn't a perfect theory, especially since she was going off of second hand explanations of how timelines worked, but it still made some sense. Even if it was little more than baseless speculation. "You need to do this before I finish the time leap machine, of course, to make sure I don't get to use it, but hypothetically, if you change world line enough you should be able to reach a convergence where I don't."
"That's it! That's gotta work!" He exploded with excitement, reaching his arms towards her and wrapping them around her back.
Saying she was taken aback by that gesture would be a severe understatement. She was being hugged by a man she had met only an hour ago, yet a man who had somehow known her for much longer. It was an odd feeling, for certain, but surprisingly enough, not an unpleasant one. It felt warm and inviting to be under his embrace, the closest she could ever recall to being home.
The moment, however, did not last, as Okabe pulled away with the expression of someone who'd just realized how out of character he was acting. With a curt apologetic smile, he turned away and sat down in front of the computer attached to the microwave, tapping away at the keys to set up yet another time leap back.
It was then, looking at his determined figure, that the genius girl understood what she had just told him to do.
She still couldn't remember. Who she was, what she did, her family, her friends. All she had, all she was, were those moments, that hour spent with Okabe Rintarou, the mysterious self-proclaimed time traveler. What he had said about her, the concern in his eyes, the warmth of his body, there might as well not be a world outside of those. And it was all about to be erased again.
"Okabe, I..." She didn't want that to happen. She didn't want the only memories she had to fade away as well, leaving no trace of her existence. She was scared, how could she not be? Memory was the essence of one's self so what would happen to the Kurisu alive right now? Was that what it meant to die?
As the cogs rapidly spun inside her head, Okabe stopped typing and turned his head towards her, interrupting her train of thought. Both of them opened their mouths in unison, but neither said a word.
He got up from his chair, the headphones still attached to his temples, staring at her with uncertainty.
He knew. It was obvious that he did, from the way his eyes begged her for confirmation. He knew, and he wanted to know if she was okay with it.
How many times had he asked her this wordless question? Seventeen loops, and he was still asking it, still looking up to her for guidance, for a helping hand. In this one moment, where he had absolute control over her very existence, he needed her as much as she needed him.
Kurisu nodded, the words dying before reaching her throat. One hour was all she'd been given, but she knew she could trust Okabe Rintarou. Perhaps it was fate that willed it so.
Okabe smiled, softly but with a clear touch of bitterness in it. And then he moved in her direction.
His lips pressed against hers before she even knew what was happening, a hand cupping her cheek. It came in a flash, and was over just as quick, but it was enough, she understood. That was where he got his strength, his drive to keep on pressing forward. That was why he'd surely succeed.
Facing once again away from her, Okabe Rintarou, the mad scientist who had traveled through time and fought against destiny for her, the man who she loved, pressed the final key, and sparks began flying out of the doorless microwave.
"I'll never forget."
As always, please don't forget to review.
Even if it's just to yell at me for that pun.