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Civilization wakes up from the rubble.
She brushes the dust off of her and lets the dream slip from her fingers like wisps of smoke. Already its memory has eluded her, lost in the fog of her mind. The grogginess behind her eyelids leaves her slow to react as she lifts herself off the ground, still sitting on the cold concrete of a ruined building. A gloved hand—she realizes a beat too late that it’s hers—comes up to shield her eyes from the sun.
She needs to get up. Why, she doesn’t know. A pull deep inside her body like instinct shakes her by the core, grabbing the flimsy reins of her mind and willing her to get up. But before she can do anything, something nudges itself by her feet.
Looking down, she blinks at a paper bag with cyan holes for eyes.
“Oh,” she gasps, as if its small touch has granted her the ability to speak. “You are so friend-shaped!” She scoops up the paper bag, noting the way it squeaks and the way it crumples under her touch.
Civilization holds it up to the sun where she can look at it properly. There are two bandaids crossed like an ‘X’ on its cheek. She smiles. “From now on, you’ll be my friend, okay?”
The paper bag—no, her Friend nods.
“Everything will be fine. I promise,” she says, almost like a declaration to herself. She hugs her Friend close.
When her Friend wriggles in her grasp, she lets go, suddenly realizing she had been holding him for far too long. “I’m so sorry!” she says, scrambling to put him down.
Her Friend has a frown on his face. She feels her own frown grow. Her Friend mimics her, tilting his head a bit to the left. Then he floats away from her, dodging a falling piece of the ceiling and diving straight into a pile of rocks.
Civilization finally stands up after a moment’s notice. She rushes over to him on wobbling legs. “NOOOOO! Don’t give up on me now! I’ve only known you for three minutes!!!” With tears in her eyes and half of her lifespan already gone, she pushes away the rocks in hopes of revealing her Friend’s crinkly face.
Instead, what she finds is a leather-bound notebook, the writing on its cover obscured by bits of gravel and fine dust. She sneezes.
The dust blows away. On its front are the words ‘NOTEYBOOK.’
Civilization doesn’t look surprised.
She opens the notebook. The pages are yellowed and aged, threatening to crumble away at the slightest touch. Civilization flips to the second page.
Her heart stops. She starts taking in shallow breaths, too quickly as though she’s hesitant to breathe in. The world turns just a bit slanted as her eyes roll over the page, struggling to retain the information.
“Nanashi Mumei,” she mumbles. When she says it, something clicks into place, like a clock has started ticking.
A hoot sounds from behind the notebook. Mumei closes the book, lowering it to her lap.
“There you are, Friend!” Her voice is a distant murmur, locked behind the wall of revelations she has yet to find out.
Her Friend’s eyes look like they’re fixed at a point beyond her, dark and distant. The vacant glint of his gaze reminds her too much of her own.
Mumei ignores his expression. “Well—um. New activity idea: how about we go on a journey?”
Her friend nods, hopping excitedly in the air.
And they do exactly that.
For days, Mumei and her Friend explore the outskirts of the town she woke up in. She sees the buildings left in ruins by a force greater than herself, crops left untended to and the sprawling wilderness crawling in from the cracks in the pavement. There is no one here. Not anymore.
For weeks, Mumei and her Friend go from countryside to countryside. The birds and beetles bring her news; the cats and snakes hiss suggestions in her ears. They tell her of Gods and fairy tales she’s long outgrown. She does not inquire any further. She already knows about these tales, ancient as space and time itself.
For months, Mumei and her Friend follow the rivers and forests. There are bugs and critters crawling in the grass; fish swimming in the currents. She passes them by, for they offer her no knowledge that she wishes for.
On a sunny day, Mumei and her Friend find a dead body in the forest.
Mumei freezes up at the sight of a body like her own. The body is face down in the dirt, lower half hidden in the bushes. Their hair sticks out in cowlicks of jet black; mostly held together by a ring of chain.
She picks up a stick nearby. Steps closer just an inch and pokes the body.
The body doesn’t move.
She pokes it again, harder this time.
The body doesn’t move.
She crouches down at the body’s side, turning it over with her stick ready to attack.
Her jaw drops. She stares at the woman before her, unconscious in all of her serene beauty. Even with bits of mud on her face, it doesn’t detract from how smooth and pale her skin looks in the sunlight. Mumei’s eyes roam downward, to the fullness of her lips, the sharpness of her jawline, the slimness of her neck—all delicately arranged with care. There’s something strangely familiar about this woman, like Mumei has seen her in places she isn’t meant to be; a flicker in the corner of her eye, or in the fleeting dreams that leave her with unbearable sadness. Heat crawls up her face as Mumei’s eyes continue downwards, and she realizes this woman isn’t dressed for travelling at all.
Mumei looks away, embarrassed.
Her Friend is by her side, also blushing.
“It sure is hot, right?” Mumei starts, piercing the air with her awkward laughter. “Um. Ok. What do I do with a dead body?”
Her Friend looks at her.
Mumei looks back at him. She sighs. “I’m taking that as a ‘I don’t know.’”
Stick still in hand, she tries poking the woman again. No response.
Suddenly, a thought slips into her mind. “Hey…” Mumei says, eyes flicking to her Friend. “What if this woman is like Sleeping Beauty? In the story, you have to kiss her to wake her up but I don’t know how to kiss someone properly…”
Her Friend’s blank stare speaks volumes. He blinks, raising an invisible eyebrow.
Mumei fidgets with the stick, tossing it back and forth between her hands. “I know this seems like a stretch but like, what if?”
Her Friend makes a sound like crumpling paper. He shakes his head.
Mumei pouts. “Whatever. If this doesn’t work, then I’ll just dump the body in a river and hope for the best.” She scoots over to the woman, tucking her hair behind her ear. She mumbles a quick apology and starts leaning in, but hesitates. Her brain short-circuits. At this distance, the woman looks otherworldly, like she had come straight out of a dream. Mumei feels the urge to watch the flutter of her long eyelashes when she wakes up, just to see if she does exist.
No no no, she has to focus on not messing up the kiss… Maybe she knows who Mumei is?
Deep, cerulean blue is all that she sees. Dark as the ocean itself, mesmerizing in the secrets they hold, Mumei freezes in her tracks.
Eyes.
Mumei shrieks, throwing herself backwards with all the grace of a chicken flapping its wings.
The woman blinks. She pulls her legs away from the bush, sitting up and adjusting the bow on her chest.
Mumei shakes violently, stick held up in defense. There are tears in her eyes, and her heart is hammering so loudly that she fears the woman across her can hear it. “AREN’T YOU DEAD?”
“No, I’m Kronii.” She pats down her wild hair, composed as ever. “I know I’m hot and all, but you really shouldn’t be kissing strangers in the woods.”
“Bwuh?” Kronii?
Kronii dusts the dirt off her outfit, ignoring the mud still encrusted on her face. She gets up, but not without sparing Mumei a glance. A flash of sadness. “Good day to you, wanderer.”
“Wait!” Mumei breaks out of her daze, shooting up to grab Kronii’s wrist. The feeling of soft, cold skin in her hand makes her shiver. She licks her lips. “Do you know who I am?” she asks, more of a plea than a question.
Kronii doesn’t say anything. Only looks at her with a deep-set blankness and that strange, strange longing in her expression.
There’s no rhyme or reason, only an impulse driven by desire and this instinct in her core, that allows Mumei to fully take Kronii’s hand in her own. “Please don’t leave.” She can feel her pulse under her fingers, beating as steady as the ticking of a clock.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
After an eternity’s notice, Kronii finally answers. “We knew each other a long time ago.” Her voice comes out in a whisper. Mumei feels like that’s not how she’s supposed to sound. She lets go of Kronii’s hand, allowing the other woman to turn around and face her.
“Were we friends?”
“No.”
Kronii’s cold tone sends a pang of hurt to Mumei’s heart. “…Your name is in my notebook.” Your page is the most detailed out of everyone else’s. There’s a photograph of us in there; your gaze fixed on the planes of my face, the corners of your lips turning up ever so slightly with your cheeks a lovely shade of pink. What does that mean? Hey, can you tell me?
“Ah. So you still have that old thing,” Kronii says. Her head lowers. She’s looking at something on the ground—or maybe the empty space where their hands had once been, but Mumei doesn’t follow her line of sight. She only focuses on Kronii.
Mumei nods. “Yeah. So that I won’t forget, or something,” she says. “There are other names apart from yours, too. I don’t know what they mean or who they are, but… they feel important. I feel like I have to find them.”
“Don’t.” Kronii looks her in the eye again, gaze as sharp as ever. “It’s not worth it.”
Mumei purses her lips. “Even if you say no, I can’t stop thinking about you—about everyone. It’s like there’s something in my mind controlling me, telling me that I have to find everyone—that I have to put together all the missing pieces of myself.“
“No, I’m telling you that it’s not worth it. You’re better off just exploring the world with your friend,” Kronii says, desperation leaking into her tone.
“There’s nothing left. There’s nothing here for us, not anymore.” Mumei’s hand rests on the bag by her side. “I woke up months ago in the ruins of a building with only the clothes on my back and I’ve been travelling ever since. My book says there’s something called humans and that I’m their ‘Guardian,’ tasked with the duty of overseeing their kind.” Mumei pauses there, gauging Kronii’s expression. The earlier desperation in her tone is gone, instead replaced by the same stoic look Mumei’s grown to be familiar with.
She looks away. “There’s nothing about me in there. Only my name, a portrait of myself and my job,” she says. “I don’t know who I am.”
“Do you need to know who you are to do your job?” Kronii says.
Mumei falters. “N-No, but it would be nice if I could remember my personality and friends.”
“They’re all useless in the line of work that you have,” Kronii says, though not unkindly. “It’s better to forget everything and—”
“I won’t do that,” Mumei snaps. The moment she says that, the sharpness falls away from her tone. She continues, softer this time. “Your page. The description said not to forget you. And that you’ll always show up first.”
Kronii’s eyes grow wide, almost imperceptible. The tight line of her jaw trembles.
“I might have woken up with no memories, but I’m a different person now, I think,” Mumei says. “I… I won’t forget. I don’t remember what our relationship was, but I promise I won’t forget this time.”
Around them, the trees in the forest sway back and forth in the mellow breeze, leaves murmuring sweet nothings. The beginning of summer is here, and the flowers have already bloomed. Kronii frowns. “Stop making promises you can’t keep.”
Mumei almost cries right there and then, but manages to keep it in. Her voice is shaky as she shouts out another attempt of getting Kronii to stay. “Please give me a chance to prove myself!”
“I won’t fall for it,” Kronii says. It sounds like an unfinished sentence.
“I’ll be your best friend in this life. And if—if I forget again, you have full permission to punch me! I really don’t wanna get punched, so I’ll definitely remember!”
Kronii’s face is blank. A moment passes.
Then, she cracks a wry smile. “Clingy as ever…”
“C—?!”
Mumei closes her mouth, interrupting herself and reaching for Kronii’s hand again. She takes her pinky in Kronii’s own, curling it in the reassurance of a promise. “I, Nanashi Mumei, swear that I won’t forget you or anyone else this time! And that I’ll be your bestest friend, of course.”
Kronii only looks at their intertwined pinkies. Something about her gaze seems careful. “Time and time again…”
“Huh?”
Kronii shakes her head. “I’m holding you to that promise, Mumei.” Eyes softening, the warmest of smiles light up her face.
Mumei’s heart skips a beat when Kronii curls her pinky too, reciprocating the promise. Her finger is cold, but Mumei feels the warmth of this small gesture from her toes to the top of her head. This childish joy of swearing oaths and making pinky promises; tiny as the flap of a butterfly’s wings. She finds herself mirroring Kronii’s smile, giddy with happiness. “You can count on me!”