Memory is one of the most important elements in forming and maintaining a person’s identity and self.
What would an eighty-year-old man make of himself if the memories of a twelve-year-old girl were all packed into his mind without a single gap?
If everything he had lived through—every path his life had taken, every relationship, every trait and tendency—were all mixed together beyond recognition, what would become of him?
"……."
What else could I do?
Other than sitting on the bed, clutching my bandaged head and groaning through the pain, what else was there?
According to the doctor, two weeks ago I had apparently missed a step while coming down the stairs at home, hit my head, and been taken to the hospital bleeding from the floor below.
When I heard that, I almost laughed.
Me? Miss a step while coming down the stairs?
Me?
Kaoru Kamiki?
As far as I remembered, the stairs in the mansion weren’t very steep, and the steps were wide enough that even with an eye mask on, going up and down them would have been easy.
I wasn’t the type to enjoy exercise, but my coordination wasn’t bad either.
My memories were fragmented, so everything before the accident was blurry, but there was no reason I should have been distracted.
Because at the very least...
"So no one’s coming after all."
What a damn house.
Even after hearing that one of their twin children had cracked his head open and been rushed to the hospital, and that he had regained consciousness, not a single one of my parents showed their face.
Only my father’s secretary had come by earlier with a drink and looked over my condition with a purely businesslike gaze.
We had never been close to a warm, loving family, but I hadn’t expected it to be this bad.
And that secretary didn’t even seem to care that she was wearing the exact same necklace design as the one my mother wore, as if she had no intention of hiding her affair with my father even from his son.
She probably thought a twelve-year-old brat wouldn’t notice, but I wasn’t going back to the life of an ordinary twelve-year-old anymore.
"Ugh..."
The pain came back, as if a blender were being run somewhere deep in my eyeballs, at the center of a brain I could never reach.
This wasn’t just the pain of a split head.
It was the pain caused by the lingering seepage of my past-life memories—more precisely, the memories of "me" from just a day ago.
And this present life, more precisely, would be the awkward collision between me waking up, accepting "my" memories, and the incomplete memories from before the accident.
"Ghh..."
It was nothing.
This absurd supernatural phenomenon I was going through was pain I had to bear alone, something I could never tell anyone about.
Maybe, just like in my past life, I’d end up living like a wreck, unable to sleep properly as forgotten memories and old trauma suddenly resurfaced for the rest of my life.
Honestly, if I had to choose...
"Damn it."
The headache finally began to ease.
My past-life memories had become clearer, and the memories of this life had sharpened a little too.
As the pain slowly receded, I let my body, which had been stiff from straining so hard, go slack and tried to steady my breathing as much as possible.
Honestly, if I had to wake up half-paralyzed, that would be fine... if only I could just forget my past-life memories—
Rrrrk—
"...Oh. Brother! You’re awake?"
When the hospital room door opened, a boy who looked exactly like me came in, his face lighting up the moment he saw me.
I looked at him and blinked a few times, gathering my thoughts.
My twin brother, the child who had been born with natural talent unlike me.
A beautiful boy with graceful features, as if he were the human embodiment of "light" itself.
My younger brother, Hikaru, set his bag on the table, pulled over a chair, and sat down beside me while checking the bandages wrapped around my head.
"Wow... That’s pretty serious."
"It hurts. It hurts a lot."
"Yeah. Looks like it... What did the doctor say? You’re okay now?"
"...Yeah. The tests and exam results were normal. The bleeding was severe, but luckily the injured area was solid, so there was no brain damage. They said the memories from before the accident would come back gradually."
"Ah... really?"
"...Yeah. That’s what they said."
"That’s a relief. I’m glad you weren’t badly hurt. Oh, right—your homeroom teacher told me to give you this. I think it’s stuff for you to look over and study from since you couldn’t go to school for two weeks."
"I see. Thanks."
With a smile that was almost not a smile at all, I took the thin notebook and the family notice sheet Hikaru handed me.
I set them on the small table beside the bed and looked at Hikaru for a moment.
Hikaru met my eyes, then smiled faintly and, as if my bedridden state amused him, wandered his gaze over the IV drip, the hospital gown, and the bed before getting up to pace around the private room.
I kept watching him in silence.
The sudden return of my past-life memories had to be a curse, no matter how I looked at it.
I had carried out missions that any normal person would have run from, and I had learned every skill needed to survive them.
Those skills and experiences had helped me immensely while living as a fugitive, evading the vicious CIA pursuit that had been tightening around my neck right up until the moment I died.
From Berlin to Zurich, Vienna, India, England, Russia, Italy, Morocco, Spain.
In countries where everything was unfamiliar, I had learned, practiced, and sharpened the skills I’d picked up, honing them further just to survive, and I had made it through countless moments of death.
And it was the same even now.
"Hikaru."
"Hm?"
Hikaru, who had been helping himself to a drink from the fridge without asking, turned at my call.
"You know, I think I was alone at home this whole time—who called 119? I wanted to thank them."
At my question, Hikaru looked at me for a moment, then gave me that bright, familiar smile and said, "I did. I was on my way home at the time. I was shocked when I saw you collapsed and the flowerpot broken."
"I see. That was Mother’s favorite flowerpot... As expected, you’re the only one I can rely on. Thanks, Hikaru."
"No. We’re brothers, aren’t we? There are only the two of us, so we should help each other when one of us is in danger."
Hikaru and I exchanged smiles.
Hikaru, my brother.
Still wearing a smile, I watched him sip his drink by the window and realized something.
'He’s lying to me right now.'
The way he tried to deceive and conceal things was convincing enough.
For someone his age, he was extremely intelligent, and his ability to judge situations was outstanding too.
He was the classic image of a so-called genius.
But that boy still didn’t know.
He didn’t know what kind of person he had just lied to.
He didn’t know that the unconscious gestures and glances he had shown me had already become the key to seeing through his lie.
"I’m tired. Maybe it’s because of the painkillers."
"Ah, sorry. Did I stay too long?"
"No. You can stay a little longer. You came all the way here—"
"You need to rest first. I’ll go. Mother said to tell you she’s sorry. She’s busy with work."
"I see. Can’t be helped. Sorry. And thanks, Hikaru."
"...Yeah. Get well soon."
Rrrrk—
The hospital room door closed.
I let out a long sigh that escaped on its own and tasted the bitter aftertaste rising from my throat.
"I said I wanted to go to hell, and they really sent me there."
The grim feeling that this life might be even less smooth than my life as a hunted fugitive washed over me all at once, but...
all I could do now was recover quickly and work toward getting discharged.
With my eyes closed, I forced myself to ignore the endless slideshow of memories replaying in my head.
And quietly, I went to sleep.
-
As time passed, the first thing I did after being discharged was visit my homeroom teacher.
The most suitable way to recover my incomplete memories was to talk to someone who knew me well.
My homeroom teacher was an ordinary female teacher in her early thirties with a husband.
There was a trace of sympathetic pity in the way she looked at me over her glasses, but that was only a clue for guessing what kind of child I had been in the past, not something especially important.
"So you had no trouble keeping up with your reading and review? No headaches or dizziness?"
"Yes. I’m fine now."
"I see."
She gently looked away and checked the documents she had received earlier, including my medical certificate and doctor’s note.
A family photo on the windowsill caught my eye, and I could see there was a child younger than me in the picture.
They looked very happy.
"I spoke with your mother, and I’m glad to hear there aren’t any problems. If you ever need help from your teacher, just let me know anytime, all right?"
"Yes."
I got up, bowed politely, and left the teachers’ office.
One conclusion I reached on the way back to class was this:
I, Kaoru Kamiki, wasn’t particularly noteworthy compared to my brother.
My grades were higher than Hikaru’s, but compared to Hikaru, who was also active in theater, I wasn’t anything especially outstanding.
My face was just as striking and beautiful as Hikaru’s, but unlike my brother, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I tended to act passively rather than take initiative.
A boy overshadowed by his sibling, not drawing attention despite his naturally beautiful appearance, shy around others, and naturally introverted.
That was my current situation, Kaoru Kamiki.
"……."
After school, an advertisement for an upcoming Disney animated film played on the building’s electronic display.
I suddenly remembered a childhood trip to Tokyo Disneyland with my family.
My father hadn’t come with us, and I had gone along with my mother and some young man I didn’t know.
For some reason, Hikaru hadn’t come with us.
Why had this memory suddenly surfaced?
Was it entirely my own will, trying to recall one of the few happy memories I had? Or was it the will of "me," feeling pity as I looked back on the life of Kaoru Kamiki?
At the sudden tightness in my chest, I wanted to throw down my schoolbag and run anywhere, anywhere at all.
I didn’t especially enjoy exercise, but the old me had never neglected running, and on days when nightmares or memory-induced headaches struck, I would grit my teeth and run as far as I could.
Even if I was out of breath or dizzy, there was no room for stray thoughts; my mind would be washed clean.
Should I run?
Should I run home?
I sat on a nearby bench, staring blankly at the screen showing a golf advertisement while I thought it over.
Then a man suddenly approached me.
Sensing his presence, I reflexively turned my head and reached out to subdue him, but...
I was a twelve-year-old boy.
My arm length and hand size were not those of my past self, so I couldn’t quite reach him.
"Oh! Hahaha. Did I startle you? Sorry about that. Um, I was wondering if you might be interested in trying out for an acting audition."
The man, having neatly pulled the business card back to avoid my hand, looked a little startled as he spoke.
Ignoring that, I glared at the middle-aged man with wary eyes as he gave me an awkward smile.
An acting audition, out of nowhere?
This man. Who the hell was he?
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