Utsutsu's thought about dying before.
It's never really concerned her; not when she's got so many clones, not when she can always return - even if there's just one fragment of her, somewhere out there. Maybe she'll die when she spreads her wings and faces Katse again, all that time after she's watched others sacrifice themselves. Maybe she'll die when she's split herself to nothing, a single slip of consciousness that fades as dusk bleeds into dawn.
It's no different from being a dandelion clock carried astray by the wind; she'll bloom anew wherever she lands, anyway. A weed that can't be stamped out; something parasitic and unwanted that drains the earth around it.
She's never liked that part.
It doesn't matter at first, living as though in a dream. She's content that way, in her half-hearted existence, in the way she seems to fade from existence as her connection with this world wanes. Nobody notices her at school or at the park; it's better that way, Utsutsu tells herself, because nobody will miss her when she's gone.
O.D. sees her, and worries; she doesn't want O.D. to worry over her, though, and only lets Hajime in because O.D would be sad otherwise.
.
She doesn't understand Hajime. Utsutsu doesn't understand how she can say things like, "I don't want to vanish" and "it'll be okay".
Utsutsu crushes dead petals in her fingertips and watches them fall when she opens her hands out again. She brushes her palms off against her skirt, and begins to walk away.
Everything Hajime says is so confronting. "It won't be okay," Utsutsu says very quietly once Hajime's out of earshot.
.
She hurts. Everything - her heart, her head, her hands. "Utsutsu?" O.D. says, and rubs soothing circles onto her back. "Is Hajime saying something?"
"I don't want to disappear," Utsutsu says and clenches her fingers in the fabric of her shirt. She's scared now, scared that maybe, just maybe after all those times of creating clones she's lost a part of her that she'll never get back. She wants to peel open her chest; prise her ribs apart and count everything inside, make sure everything's still there. "I don't want to vanish any more."
O.D's frown softens. "Oh, Utsutsu, I'm so glad."
.
She's started to dream of Berg-Katse again; stealing her face and her power, drawing the life out of her friends. It's been a long time since she's been haunted by Katse's shadow; a long time since she's dreamt about reaching to hold someone's hand and clasping knots of bones rimed by translucent skin.
One night she wakes up at four in the morning with the blood pounding in her ears. Her window's open, her door ajar; light pools on the floor in a wedged slice. Altair stirs on her bedspread and kneads her quilt.
Utsutsu pads out of the apartment; her ankles click quietly as stops before Hajime's apartment. A shadow stirs behind the curtains.
"Couldn't sleep?" Hajime asks. Utsutsu shakes her head. "I had a bad dream," she says and curls into a beanbag.
Hajime makes her hot chocolate with marshmallows and flops in an armchair, frowning at her phone as she tucks her legs beneath her. "I'm helping someone who forgot to do their homework," she whispers by way of explanation and winks. "Don't tell senpai!"
"Have you thought about dying?" Utsutsu asks. She's thinking about Katse again, about looking into the mirror and seeing a diamond-segmented tail and a monster's smile. She's thinking about her hand in Hajime's, as Hajime leads her by the wrist through a maze of office cubicles and scaffolding. Humans are warmer than her kind; as Hajime spoke to LOAD, Utsutsu had clasped her hands under the table, trying to memorise the feeling.
Hajime stops halfway through rubbing her eyes. "Well," she says slowly and sets down her pencil. "Not really! There's so many things about this world that I haven't seen for myself yet, and I'd like to do everything I can before I go! I want to get the new limited edition year planners that all my favourite companies make every year! And to attend scrapbooking meetups! I want to see the sun rise every day, because it's not the same all the time. I'm not ready to vanish yet! But ..."
She lowers her voice as she straightens out a crinkle on her page, smoothing out the paper with the back of her hand. "Everybody has their day, too. If my time comes tomorrow, that's fine! If it comes in sixty years, even better! You always have to live life to the fullest, just in case."
Utsutsu stares into her mug, at the dried rings of chocolate on the inner rim marking the time she's spent in Hajime's apartment. She opens and closes her hand, feeling the skin tense across the back of her knuckles; when she folds her fingers into her palm she's struck by how cool her skin is, so different from Hajime's. "I guess you're right," she says and sets down the cup.
.
She's getting better now, no longer taunted by night terrors of her friends dead and dying.
It's still good to have reassurance, though.
Before she sleeps, Utsutsu goes to her window to pick up the cup telephone that Hajime's placed between their windows. She jangles the cord gently and listens for the silvered chime of bead-bells and whispers, "good-night, Hajime," and cradles the cup to her cheek when Hajime tugs back against the string and says, "good-night, Utsutsu!".
Maybe it's silly. That's what they have cellphones for, anyway. "It just isn't the same," Hajime told her when she decorated the cups, plastering them with smiling-cat stickers and flowers, glittery hearts and holograph stars. "Wake me up if there's anything, okay?"
.
"What would you think if I died?"
Hajime asks the question so casually, like it doesn't mean anything. Like it's not a real possibility, now that Katse's machinations are underway. Utsutsu's hands clench in her lap.
Utsutsu hops down from the hammock; her throat closes up. "I'd be gloomy too," she says. She's thinking of her nightmares again, Katse-as-her lacing her fingers with Hajime's and draining her of everything she has to give. Hajime smiles at her when Utsutsu takes her hand and clasps it, stroking the back of her hand with her thumb. "I don't want you to vanish."
Hajime's fingers tighten around Utsutsu's. "You won't be rid of me that easily!" she says, and squeezes Utsutsu's hand.