Today, after waking up, I saw a red cat out by the shop window.

I know I've seen that cat before.

Was it in a dream?

These weeks were awful, some of the worst that I've ever felt. I had no idea how much like an automaton I could be until the day that we heard of Milky and Ly Li's deaths. Both of them stabbed to death in their homes, and the culprit could have been "anyone".

I and my sister, we barely spoke for days. I barely even spoke to my beloved. Every move I made, I seemed to make trembling. I was like a malfunctioning machine. And yet the most talented Clockworker in the shop couldn't fix me, couldn't make me run right and prevent this sleeplessness. This barrage of headaches.

On one day, I woke up to find him massaging my shoulders.

"...You fell asleep at my worktable."

"You're not mad?" I looked back at him.

He shook his head. "No. You didn't see my plans for your and little sister's surprise did you?"

I yawned and leaned back. "No..." I somehow couldn't get up the energy to be even excited over a rare surprise from Kiril. I just had a headache.

Seeing my reaction, his smile changed. "...Elluka...It's going to be alright..."

I briefly wondered if, somehow, the reason he was not like me and Irina in this situation was because of his…condition, from before we'd started dating. So he wasn't affected because, for him, this was all...

He knew it was bad for me, but did he really mind it?

...I must have had some kind of expression on my face when I was thinking that. He'd stopped with my shoulders and was sitting beside me. He was looking at me then without a smile, but just as I worried that I'd conveyed my careless thoughts to him he moved and kissed the top of my head. He mumbled, "I'm sorry."

Poor thing. I softly smiled back, even if I wasn't in the mood to smile. "You didn't do anything."

"—Well, I—" he swallowed. "I just—wish that there was something I could do."

I patted him, awkward as it was. "You're already doing all you can."

"Mm..."

I hated this silence between us. For a brief moment, I even blamed him for it—forgetting my earlier reservations about thinking too badly of him when my face was an open book. I was just getting annoyed. Because he should be more talkative, if he's the one unaffected by death, instead of placing the burden on me, someone who is very affected by death.

He finally did talk. "But you should eat something. Okay?"

"Okay."

It didn't matter how much I ate.

Or how many times I faked a smile at Irina.

Because ultimately, the result of the final selection was something I couldn't prevent.

Those days were like dreams, and I was dreaming too deeply to question each one. Or maybe it was just that I've forgotten too much.

Milky died.

Ly Li died.

Somehow I almost forgot those things, and as a consequence I went about as though everything was normal when I shouldn't have, when it would have been prudent to keep them in mind.

Kiril gave us that music box.

I forgot that too, and as a result I thought that everything between me and Irina was…

But those things came back to me when it was too late, when I was starting to question these hazy days, but when I was already falling back asleep. There was a cold floor underneath me, but I already felt warm as I closed my eyes. I had remembered everything that happened over the last two weeks, which I had pushed to the back of my mind, but I still was preparing to dump all of that away on this floor while I slept.

It's so warm…

I've even forgotten what it was that I was doing all this time.

It's okay. I'll remember it sooner or later.