“Hello, papa? Can you see me?”
“Feliz cumple—” On Carmen’s phone, her mother slapped her father’s arm, interrupting his loud singing as she took the phone back.
“Sorry, mija. Your father’s just so excited, he’s ahead of himself. Hi, everyone!”
Carmen turned the phone towards them all, seated while Daniel stood between Mr. Stone and Rafiq on the other side of the coffee table. There, a Japanese-style strawberry birthday cake twinkled in the light, circular and white with strawberries and cream on top.
Mrs. Garcia gasped. “Is that your cake? Look, mi carino!”
On screen, Mr. Garcia raised his eyebrows. “Wow. It looks even better than your mother’s cake, mija.”
His jab earned another shoulder slap from Mrs. Garcia. Carmen handed Daniel the phone, adjusting the paper birthday hat atop her head.
He smiled. That was his idea.
“Wait! Don’t start singing, yet,” Mr. Garcia said. “Daniel, hand me to Mr. Stone and turn the speaker off. I need to speak to him privately.”
Confusion rippled through their small group, but Daniel handed the phone over. Carmen facepalmed.
“Yes, Mr. Garcia? Mmhmm. Yes sir. Oh. I see. I understand completely. Okay.”
Mr. Stone put him back on speaker. Carmen immediately chimed in. “Papa! What did you tell him?”
“You’ll find out soon, mija. Let’s get to singing!”
Daniel counted down before they all started to sing at the same time — him, Mr. Stone, Rafiq, Akane, even her parents on the phone, too. Carmen just sat there and smiled, yet for Daniel, she was the sun in the room, beaming with happiness. Chip perched on her shoulder, wiping a tear from his ghostly eyes.
“...happy birthday to you!”
Smoky wisps danced through the strawberries as Carmen blew out her candles. Just as she picked up the knife to cut through the cake…
“Just a moment, Carmen,” Mr. Stone said. “Your father wanted me to get a picture of you with the cake, first. Rafiq, Daniel, you should get in the picture, too.”
Mr. Stone glanced at them and winked.
Daniel wasn’t in on the plan — but he was the last one to stop any mischief. He played along, making his way behind Carmen’s sofa. He posed and smiled while Mr. Stone pointed the camera. He asked for Carmen to take her glasses off, too, to her confusion.
At the last moment, Rafiq pushed Carmen’s face into the cake, and the camera flash captured her mask of frosting.
“Boom! Happy birthday!” Rafiq exclaimed, while Mr. Garcia held his sides in laughter. Daniel got napkins for her, sure, but he did it with a cackle the whole way.
The party wasn’t over, yet.
Mr. Stone played a birthday song from his own phone, and sang for Carmen in fluent Japanese. Daniel’s brain short-circuited in surprise. His voice was deep and rich, and his formal tone never even seemed like he had enough range for the words and pitches, yet he pulled it off flawlessly.
It was time to open gifts after that, after Carmen went to wipe the frosting from her face, back in her own room. But, once she left, Daniel waited and followed her himself with a gift of his own in hand. Inside the bag, he had a figure of her favorite character from the Neko Neko Anime.
----------------------------------------
Carmen hadn’t taken her Memory Shot that morning.
She meant to take it immediately after waking up and checking her happy birthday text. As she responded to the only texts she had, her parents, a sweet long message from Daniel, Mr. Stone had knocked on her door and called her into the other room.
None of the party felt right. The lights were just too bright, exhaustion weighed her bones to the floor, and the noise — oh, the noise. Somehow, the room was both too loud, yet muffled and quiet, like there was wax stuck in her ears.
Rafiq smashing her face in the cake by her father’s request gave a brief hit of dopamine that knocked the tiredness away, and Daniel’s smile while the others sang happy birthday energized her, too, but now it was back. As soon as she had a natural exit, she fled to her room.
With her face washed and de-cakeified, Carmen pulled one of the Memory Shot vials from her drawer. Voice and music from the other room bled through the walls, likely Mr. Stone warning Rafiq to not take any cake until she got her slice.
She held the Memory Shot up to the light, watching the light dance inside of the glowing pink liquid. But, in the mirror, she noticed the eyebags beginning to form, the pimple appearing beside her nose, the stressed red veins at the outside of her eyes.
Was this the effect of kissing her daily dosage? Or…was it because of the Memory Shot?
Carmen pursed her lips. Her body itself resisted the idea of putting it back, especially as she looked at the other shots in the drawer. Inside, there was perfection. She could be flawless, energetic, intelligent, and she wouldn’t lose anything. She could make her parents proud again—
No.
She put it back and slammed the drawer shut, grasping the counter with white knuckles. This wasn’t about making them proud. It wasn't.
It wasn’t.
But they were one loss away from being collectively kicked out of the program. All of them had to be perfect, her included. With the Memory Shot, she could be better again; she could be perfect.
Carmen opened the drawer again, took out the Memory Shot, and unscrewed the cap. She needed this.
“Carmen?”
Her heart sank through her body, through the ground, all the way through the globe itself to end up back at South City, so it could close itself into her room and never be seen again.
Daniel watched her with a gift bag in his hands, standing at her wide open door, watching with a concerned gaze.
He cleared his throat. “Uh…what is that?”
“How did you get in?” she whispered.
“You didn’t close the door behind yourself, so I thought I’d just…let myself in. What is that?”
“A…protein shake.”
“A glowing protein shake?”
“No! You’re right. I had read the label wrong. It’s a face cleanser I have to take.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“A face cleanser with no label…that glows?”
“Because I tore it off. I didn’t want anyone knowing I take this…medicine.”
Daniel sat the bag on the counter and paced towards her, worry visible in his expression. Carmen dropped the Memory Shot back into the drawer and tried to close it. His reaction time was always better — way better. He lunged forward and put his hand between the drawer, forcing her to close it on his hand.
Daniel yelled in pain and scrunched his face, but he’d stopped her from closing it. Carmen retreated a step as he held his aching hand and opened the drawer, eyes going wide as he saw the other vials.
He looked up at her for another answer. She held her shoulders, sighing. “They’re experimental performance enhancers, Daniel. I didn’t want anyone to see me taking them, but I felt terrible without it, and…and I’ve taken it before our fights. It’s how I beat Stylus.”
Daniel ran a finger over the glass of a vial.
She couldn’t stop herself once the floodgates opened. The choice was to not cry, or to not spill the beans. It took everything in her to hold the tears back. “And I didn’t want to, but when I started to lose, I just had to, and it felt so good, but I knew Mr. Stone would be mad if he knew. That night when I fought Montana, I was testing the Memory Shot for the first time.”
“Is this why you didn’t want to fight with me? As a team?”
Carmen pursed her lips. “I’m sorry.”
“If we’re sharing secrets…” Daniel placed the Memory Shot back in the drawer. “I get jealous when I see you having fun with your parents. I know I shouldn’t, but I don’t have that back home. My Dad was a dopehead, and before I ended up here, we were about to be homeless ‘cause of what he was involved in. ‘Cause he was looking for another hit.”
Carmen placed her hands over her mouth. She hadn’t seen him with such a distant, somber look, his eyes trained on a dimension she’d never know.
“And I say that ‘cause I don’t want you to do the same. I won’t tell the others,” Daniel said. “And this doesn’t change how I feel about you, Carmen. I just don’t want you to tear yourself apart for it. I don’t want you to tear us apart for it.”
He shifted his hand forward across the counter, and Carmen placed hers over his. “I won’t. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry about what I said in Paris, too. I didn’t—”
“No. You were right — I am here to leave. But, I still love you. I still want to enjoy my time here as much as I can, and I don’t think I can do it with anyone aside from you. That’s why I don’t think our relationship is a mistake. I think it’s the best choice I’ve made.”
She couldn’t stop the floodgates at that point. A tear rolled down her cheek.
“When I told Rafiq, he said you were probably avoiding me on the way here ‘cause you felt guilty about what you said.”
“You told Rafiq?!”
“Was he wrong?” Daniel chuckled.
“No, but…”
“Then how about we make it better?” he said, his bright smile flashing those dimples in his cheek, even despite what he just found out about her.
And he leaned in closer. Carmen did, too. For once in a while, everything felt right without the Memory Shot. It had been too long since she felt Daniel’s lips, and the grace of his hand along her cheek.
A lifetime passed before he pulled away.
“Better?” she asked.
“Better. Wanna ask Mr. Stone if we can go to the Eternal Blossom Garden together?”
“Sure, but…while we’re here, I’ve had a question on my mind. Did you know the Carmen of your universe?”
“Since eighth grade, yeah.”
Carmen folded her hands behind her back, her body language turning inwards. “You haven’t known me for as long yet. Do you…like me more than her?”
She could see the past two months of their interactions play as his eyes glassed over, his gaze falling through her. Daniel’s hand fell from her shoulder, his face drooping. With every passing second of hesitation, how bad she felt for asking, and how much she hated that he couldn’t respond only grew.
Was she even worse?
Was she just a downgrade, his second option until he got back home?
I still want to enjoy my time here as much as I can. I don’t think I can do it with anyone aside from you.
Carmen shook her head. “You can’t answer. It’s fine. I—”
“I’m sorry.”
“I just shouldn’t have asked. Do you want to ask Mr. Stone, or should I?”
----------------------------------------
It took serious convincing for Mr. Stone to allow Daniel and Carmen to go alone to the Eternal Blossom Garden, but that changed once Rafiq came in clutch and helped change his mind.
Before long, Daniel and Carmen were on the train, riding to the Imperial Palace. The Eternal Blossom Gardens circled the palace, with a small portion visible from the East Gardens, the one place that the public could visit.
Carmen didn’t smile in the picture they took on the way there, though. They ended up in the very back train car, where the door behind them had a window to the rails flying underneath. When Daniel tried taking a selfie together, she only offered a flat look.
Asking her about music she liked and offering to listen to her rock playlist on the way there seemed to brighten her spirits, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still down with her. Was it from not taking the performance enhancers? Did it affect her mood that badly?
He thought back to the excitement in the room as they watched Carmen’s fight against Stylus, and how much they congratulated her for turning the tables. But, he remembered the moment she seemed to shift into another gear. He thought it was skill — he thought it was her. It didn’t change how happy he felt about her win, but…how good was she without the enhancers?
Why did she even feel the need to use them?
Finding out why would come later. She didn’t seem the mood for an interrogation, so Daniel hoped it would go away once they reached the apparently beautiful gardens.
It was a short walk from the train station to the East Gardens, and Daniel filled the time by trying — and failing — to pronounce the names of stores and restaurants they passed. It all still felt more familiar than Paris did, since Toklyo was still such a big city, just like Chicago was.
The urban look disappeared once they reached the East Garden itself. A long line to the front wooden gates trailed over the bridge across the river.
“I’ve gotta add this song to my playlist,” Daniel said, holding both his and Carmen’s phones, headphones around his neck. “Where did you hear it from?”
“I don’t know. It’s been a while.”
“Do you remember when?”
“No.”
Daniel’s shoulders slumped. “Oh…well, it’s fire anyway. You got a favorite song out of the playlist?”
“Not really.”
“Come on. I know there has to be one song you like more than the others,” Daniel said, handing her her phone back.
Carmen yawned. “Hmm…nah. Still nothing.”
He sighed. “Alright.”
The rest of their time waiting in line passed in silence, with Carmen ambiently scrolling on social media. It wasn’t worth pushing her to talk more than she felt like.
They managed to scoop up the last tickets for the tour through the East Gardens, down flat concrete pathways wide enough for cars. Where the rest of the city felt like a landscape on its own, true nature returned, here. Cherry blossoms fell like snow from trees painted into the beautiful landscape dotted with traditional Japanese structures. These were the real things Mr. Stone’s dojo meant to emulate. Cherry blossoms fell like snow, and one even fell right into Daniel’s mouth.
But Carmen didn’t laugh. As the tour guide went on about history, he tried plucking one out of the air and nearly tripped, yet Carmen didn't laugh. And when he plucked another one out the air and joked about eating it, she didn’t react, so the only logical course of action was to follow through.
She barely chuckled, only when he completely swallowed the paper-like blossom.
They stopped when the Eternal Blossom Forest became the most dense, circling the distant Imperial Palace. Pedestrians weren’t allowed within the palace itself, the tour guide explained. If they tried, they would meet a swift end at the hands of Sakura, the Ronin Guardian, a top Fighter sworn to protect the emperor’s palace boundary.
That was the only time Carmen seemed tuned into the entire experience. Despite the tour guide emphasizing how illegal it was to try to enter, Carmen held onto his every word, asking about previous attempts to enter. Every time anyone tried, Sakura took care of them.
Her energy disappeared once they left headed back towards the entrance.
“Why here?” Daniel asked, as the tour guide gestured and explained the history behind an ancient castle wall, its rough war face now softened as it sat surrounded by cozy cherry trees.
Carmen shrugged. “My Dad had a postcard from a friend that came here. I used to love looking at it when I was little.”
“Really? I thought it would be from anime or something,” Daniel said, chuckling at his own joke when she didn’t “Do you have a picture of the postcard?”
“No.”
“Oh. That’s fine. Wanna come take a picture before we go?”
Daniel took Carmen’s soft, warm hand in his own and led her to the perfect tree for a selfie. Yet, Carmen still didn’t smile. As they headed towards the exit, Daniel kept holding her hand, but didn't try making conversation any further. Instead, he turned his attention to Rafiq’s text.
“Bro,” the first text read, split up into multiple messages. “Mr. Stone said we’d be training while you were gone, but it’s just me. Bro left with Akane.” The last message closed out with a set of eye emojis.
Daniel laughed, gaining a little bit of joy from the entire experience.