‹Ginji›

It would seem that the weather today would be great.

The room is full of natural light even through the translucent white curtains that covered our large windows, and the blueness of the sky reflecting inside the room gives off a very pleasant vibe.

It is cold, but while I want to stay in bed more, my body would not let me sleep any further, but the weather made up for that.

Beside me, I could hear a steady breathing and I could feel an embrace as I came to. I had a bit of a weird feeling for a moment—as if I was back in the past, but one look at Yui's sleeping face gave back my reassurance, thus I reciprocated her embrace.

"Mgh…"

"Oops, I think I woke you up. You could sleep more if you want to. I'll prepare breakfast once you get up."

"I'm good… What time is it…?"

"8:40."

"…

Let's get up…"

As I withdrew from the bed, I opened all of the curtains of the bedroom which allowed more light to shine inside. Indeed, the sky is looking clear with only a few spots of clouds. If this was around March to July, I would have hated seeing this scene and would prefer if it was cloudy and perhaps a little rainy. It is however in the middle of September which means that it will only get colder once the next month arrives.

Anyway, it is a Saturday which gave us the luxury of sleeping in. Well, I say that but both of us mostly work from home anyway.

Yui now works in a publishing company as a designer where she illustrates for all sorts of books. Because of her accumulated experiences, she was even given a chance to write and illustrate her own picture book. You don't know how proud I am to see the name Yui Satoshi in the front cover of the book.

In my case, I got promoted and is now managing a department in Stylo Studio. I now mostly handle a lot of online content. I still work with long strip comics, but I also take care of multimedia projects now. We make animated trailers, storytelling videos, and animated music videos to name a few. We mostly outsource for things that Stylo doesn't do, but overall, we've managed to break through an international clientele with Japan as our biggest customer and the United States coming second.

Things are busier now, but I always make sure that me, my family, and my team will be able to have their own free time.

All that being said… while here I am finally reaping the fruits of my hard work from college to now, things just don't feel the same.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm happily married to Yui for four years now, and our relationship is far from bad. Even the fact that she still takes care and uses the braided hair tie I gave her as a present is enough to make me overjoyed.

When I mean that things aren't the same anymore, there are days when it is hard to look in the mirror when you are reminded of the scars that still hasn't disappeared from the wounds that the AMM suits was not able to protect on that frightening night in the abandoned building because of Joseph Horach.

Although things still leave me very melancholic from time to time, the memories within me would want me to carry on with life happily.

…

"What should we do for breakfast?" we asked ourselves as we both stared at our fridge.

"Wait… didn't I make a batch of sausages a few days ago?"

"Ahh… the one with the recipe Gin gave you?"

"Yup, that one."

"Then let's have that one. Should I make garlic rice from the leftover last night, Ginji?"

"Like I said, I don't eat much in the morning since my stomach is weak."

"It's not that early anymore, though?"

"I'll just make a portion that's yours only, then we'll make the rest for lunch. Can we agree on that?"

"Fine~"

"Ow, ow, ow, ow… Man, my back really has been acting up, huh…"

All I did was crouch down to take out a pan from the cabinet, and I could already feel the pain on my back.

People always say that reaching your thirties would make you realize that you're getting old. I didn't really believe it at first, but now that I'm turning 31 I start to feel it.

I regularly exercise and try to be healthy as much as possible, but I guess that's just how things are. At least, I have finally recovered from my mental scars so that's a plus.

"Be careful now. I told you not to overdo it last night."

"Huuuh, I don't think I overdid it."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say," followed by an attack from his hip targeted at my back.

"Owww…!"

"Thanks for taking care of me yesterday."

Hearing those words, I endured the pain on my back to give the adorable lady a kiss on the cheek.

"You're welcome, dear."

Okay, maybe it's not just because of my age.

▪ ▪ ▪

It's been ten years since Gin and Ringo passed away. None of us can tell how many years we grieved this loss.

It's only until a few years that things finally started moving again. Slowly, we began to move on from their deaths and life started to turn for us once again.

While the incident from ten years ago still leaves a scar in society, including millions of Laxes worth of damaged property and 399 recorded deaths in a matter of 15 minutes, some things just can't be resolved easily.

This incident made it clear that one of the biggest bridges towards the interaction of Exiles with the humans is Gin, and losing him led to a near-total withdrawal of their aid towards the aboveground. Resurfaced Exiles are still around just like normal, but the presence of white masks has been lost entirely. Tenth still leads the people underground, and they are satisfied with this resolution.

On the other hand, not long after their deaths, news spread that Dr. Rishou Kagetora has suddenly gone mad and is now staying at an institution where he is taken care of and under treatment. Apparently, there are only a few times where his wife and daughter could see him, but even after ten years, he could not recognize his own family and has not shown any signs of improvement in his condition.

All the news was relayed to me by Dr. Nishina. He is still studying the cause of his blindness to this day, but with the help of Tenth's personal contributions, he reached a breakthrough in which clinical trials has yielded a semi-permanent restoration of his sight. There are times now where he can very, very faintly see, but it seems that he is still not satisfied with the results.

As for Tenth, he has stepped down from being the principal of Blue Ink while Akira remained in the administrative office under the new trustworthy school head. Now, he is just enjoying the time with his family, leading the Exiles, and having drinks with Uncle Amano, Uncle Shuu, and even Shiro's father.

Speaking of them, Uncle Amano seems to have gotten over the loss of Gin, but for Uncle Shuu… it was a rough few years. He blamed himself for the death of his daughter and 'son' with the memories of them being the cause of Gin's suffering from childhood resurfacing back. It was to the point that he became physically unwell, and even experienced several episodes of cognitive distortion.

While professional counseling did not work for him, he is now fortunately back to his usual self with the help of his family and the memories of Ringo that are within Reina, along with the memories of Gin that are within me and Kuroko. He recovered physiologically and is now back to his loud and lively self.

Also, a new generation is starting to arrive. While Gin's nephew from his cousin's, Mochizuki's family, has turned 18, Yoru, who is Rena's son is two years younger. Meanwhile, Anna has given birth to her daughter four years ago, and Ane Yuna already has a child of nine years old. Who would have thought that among all of us friends Akira and Anna would be the ones to become a parent first.

Well, I am hoping to be one soon too as we have finally settled down with a lot of savings and emergency funds. In this economy, you reaaally have a lot of things to think about to reach stability.

That being said, I'm glad that things are slowly becoming fine now. More than Gin and Ringo knew, they moved so many hearts in the short time they were alive.

▪ ▪ ▪

"GHAAAH-!!"

"Dear… what's wrong…?" from my involuntary jolt from the bed, it seems that I woke my wife up.

In the middle of October, I experience another dream… or I should say a real nightmare.

"Another dream again…?" as I turned the night light on, I faintly saw the concerned look coming from Yui and reassured her away from her worries with a caress on her hair.

"I'm fine, I'm fine… You can go back to sleep. I just need to send a message."

Thus, I sat on the bed and picked up my phone, bringing up a group chat where I typed out a bit of a lengthy message.

"Hi. Sorry for the message at such degenerate hours. How are you all these days?

It's been a while since our last meeting, but I think I have something important to share with you all. Let's organize another one in Kei's office as usual once we're all free.

I hope that everyone will be able to attend. Thanks."

One thing we learned is that in three in eight billion instances can the memories of a dead individual be remembered by a different person.

Over the past ten years, we have never met another existential coincidence apart from me, Kuroko and her sister. But even in this span of time, we have continuously held meetings to collect and arrange the information and memories that surface in our minds. Slowly through dreams, Kuroko and I have seen snippets of Gin's memories that have been lost in his stay inside the Room of Reality for 87 years.

Bit by bit, we were able to make sense of his memories and record them. It was not like how Gin in the past recalled most of his uncle Eijiro's memories. It has indeed been ten years, and we haven't even remembered Gin's last moments.

▪ ▪ ▪

Come the weekend, Yui and I found ourselves walking at Sector 527 after dropping our car at a nearby car park. The afternoon is already very chilly, thus we hurried to the White Street towards Gin's residence—which is now under Kei's ownership where he now lives with his wife.

Truly, not much has changed in the exterior of the house, and with gates open, we let ourselves in to the house through the open porch doors.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"I guess we're not the first ones here?"

"Hahaha, that's never happening," replied Akira as he carries a young girl on his arm.

"Nina, say hello to Uncle Ginji."

The girl named Nina—Akira and Anna's daughter—then waved at me.

"Hiiiii, Uncle GG."

"Ahahaha, you still call me that, you cheeky brat," I jested as I booped the nose of the kid.

"Anyway, thanks for having us, Ane Shiina."

"Make yourselves at home," she then greeted from the kitchen as she was cooking.

"Where's Anna? Wasn't she supposed to help you out?"

"She's just taking ingredients from their house. Yuna's also bringing food from next door."

"Sometimes it really feels like you're about nag my wife, G," Akira complained.

"Hahh… Just don't mind it."

Before I even forget, once Akira got married to Anna, he moved to their parents' house and has been living there since. Around the past decade, Yohan Mizuno was able to find the Sakato family and paid compensation for the death of Gin after he found out the link of his father to Gin's family. Using the money, they were able to rebuild the house, added more rooms, and Akira made sure that they will not be experiencing flooding again.

"Good afternoon, we're here."

With the arrival of the Nijisaki siblings, we climbed to the second floor of the house to meet Kei in the master bedroom.

The room has stayed quite close to how it was ten years ago, but things were a bit rearranged. There is now a divider where the bed is separated from the room, as it also acts as Kei and her wife's office. There is now a set of couches on the side where the door towards the veranda is. For many years, this is where we conducted our meetings.

In this room are Kei, Uncle Amano, me, Kuroko, Reina, Hiro, and Akira who is recording the minutes of the discussions. With no fail, Kuroko had always begun the meeting.

"Once again, good afternoon. As always, thanks for having us, Kei, and thank you all for coming here.

Before we start, just like usual, I'd like to ask the Coincidences if they have any news regarding the respective cognitive realms."

I started, "As usual, nothing here. I have no chance of even remotely seeing an image of it."

"Same here, as for Ringo-nee. Not that I have seen hers," Reina followed.

"Ditto," Kuroko ended.

What we have ascertained is that with the death of Gin, we lost access to his cognitive space, or what we know of as the gray room in his mind where we can consciously communicate with each other when we are unconscious in the real world. All we have access to now is Gin's memories.

"Since Ginji is the one that called the meeting, we'd like you to share what you have seen."

My heart suddenly raced. I simply scratched my head in silence after not knowing what I should even say.

"How should I even begin… Sorry to beat around the bush, but I'd like to ask Kuroko first if he had had any dreams or flashes of memories."

"Since our last gathering, there's nothing on my side."

"I see, hahh…

Then this maybe the last time we will be having this kind of meeting."

Needless to say, the entire room fell to shock. Nevertheless, I continued.

"As you all know, being an existential coincidence does not only mean they can see the past memories of who they are linked to. We also inherit their thoughts and feelings…

But as observed, in the past 30 years we have uncovered, Kuroko and I only managed to get these thoughts from the first eleven years of his stay in the Void. I managed to see three years’ worth of memories, and it was mind-numbing.

It was the same, silent White Room. Without a word whatsoever, Gin, who is now 55 years old, retains his silver hair. He keeps his usual routine of regularly taking supplies from the midpoint room and doing exactly the things he does every single day.

At this point, he is akin to a robot that only follows the commands it is programmed to do. It's as if he is just a soulless vessel within an ever-increasing gravity which could explain why we can no longer peer to his thoughts.

Back when he was still alive, I have heard time and time again how powerful his will to live is, which is why he survived the Medical Children Program and even after getting hit by a truck with his shattered bones and several internal bleeding. It was like… the person Kuroko and I were seeing was just… a shadow of his will to live.

More than likely… eleven years after he entered the White Room is when his consciousness died.

For the next two years of the new memories, the same thing persisted… but then he experienced mental distortion.

The room began to change. It was like blotches of black paint appeared on walls, floor, and ceiling of the room, moving very erratically. Just like his previous mental distortions, all I could hear was his screams."

Then I paused, as though the next thing that I wanted to say would not come out of my mouth. I then briefly looked at Kuroko as I feel the frown on my eyebrows, and continued.

"All these years… I would like to apologize for not saying something very important. Gin, Kuroko, and I kept it to ourselves to not worry all of you…

But I actually met a doctor that researched the cognitive distortion when I brought it up to him. He went to several countries in search for valuable data, and he shared his findings with me as I contributed the idea to him.

He found out that there are cases of Distortion where it overloads the brain… to the point where the body instantly stops working and faint as if a switch was flipped off.

I am saying this because… the final moment I saw of Gin was him suddenly going silent, losing resistance against the gravity. I woke up before he completely fell to the ground.

As you know, the remains that we saw inside the Room back then was the blotches of black and a skeleton with a cracked skull. I surmised that after losing himself to the gravity, his now dead body slammed to the floor leaving the cracks on his bones.

But this only means that he died in the first 33 years of his stay inside, while the door did not open for another 54 years, which I do not know why.

I think… that's all I have to share with you all."

Immediately, Kuroko stood up as he grabbed my hand and pulled me to stand, and offered an embrace as he patted my back.

Sometimes, being a Coincidence is like a curse… as it makes you watch how your best friend and a brother give up on his life, assuming that his lover has not been saved from her illness, and succumbed to despair—dying in loneliness and in emptiness.

I was forced to swallow a hard pill. The tears came after and my screams uncontrollably came out while I lost strength in my legs.

I have always wished that we can get a closure to everything… but not in such a tragic way.

"Let it out… let it out… you're not in this alone, alright…?"

In our experience, there is no condition whether we have to be conscious or not when seeing memories. Thus, a few moments after I laid out all the new memories, Kuroko also found them all at once.

Once the two of them calmed down, the room has gotten completely silent until Uncle Amano hunched away from his seat.

"Thank you… Ginji, Kuroko," he calmly said. "At least now we know how my son died, so maybe we can now completely move on from this… but of course, I'm still sad that I lost Eijiro and Gin so quickly. It just turned out… that there was nothing we can do in the past, and we can't get him and Ringo back now.

Kei, Akira, help me tell your mother and Anna tomorrow about this."

"Yeah."

"I'll also send the transcript to my dad tonight."

"Thank you… Thank you for all your help all these years.

Well then… maybe we should head down. The others are probably waiting for us since it's almost time for dinner."

Nearing the sundown, the yard of the house was covered with a large tarp and decorated with warm lights. Several tables have been laid out to make a long one, awaiting to be filled with a myriad of dishes for all the guests to enjoy.

What was a small family dinner between the Sakato and Akanami years back evolved to an even bigger gathering, as the families grew larger, and we met more people.

With the start of the dinner, perhaps it is one of the rare times when this part of White Street will be far from quiet.

"Uncle GG, Uncle GG!" suddenly I felt a tug on my coat and saw Nina as Yui and I turned around.

"What's up, Nina? Finished eating already?"

"Yup."

"Then what can we do for you?"

"Nothin'!"

"Ahahaha, you really are a cheeky brat. C'mere, kid!"

As Nina walked closer, I carried her to my lap.

"You've gotten heavy, you know that?"

"I'm not heavy!"

"Sure, sure. Whatever you say."

"Hey, Nina~" Yui then called to her. "Do you remember when I told you that I was going to give you a picture book as a present?"

"Mhm…! Mhm…!"

"Don't move around too much or you'll fall, kiddo."

"I have good news for you, Nina! It's almost finished!"

Immediately, the child's face brightened up.

"Yay! Yay…! I can't wait! Auntie Yui's picture book, yay!"

"Do you want to know the title of it, Nina?"

"I want to know, um… please!"

"Aww, so polite. Keep this in mind then; the title is…

Silver Apple!"

"Silver Apple…?"

"You heard me right! It's about two people finding love and realizing how important family and friends are. I'm sure you'll love it.

The next time I visit, I'm going to give it you, okay? It will only be the only copy in the world, so make sure to take care of it!"

"Okay…!

…

Um, Uncle GG!"

"What is it now, little miss?"

"Mom told me he has another brother that is now far away."

"Oh? Do you know his name?"

"Yup! It's Gin! Mom said he's a very strong person and protects his family from danger."

"You're right about that. Do you want to know more about him? If so, I can tell you all sorts of things about him."

"Really?!"

"Really."

"Please tell me…! Please, Uncle GG."

"Hahaha… I can't say no to that.

But give me a moment, okay? Because your uncle here doesn't know where to start."

▪ ▪ ▪

October 27, 2033.

The year's beginning of winter did not have a lot of snowfall. The sky is taking turns on being cloudy and sunny throughout the day. A thin bed of snow will fall, but then it would melt once the sun shines again.

Within the silence, only a single set of footsteps can be heard approaching an array of gravestones.

Ginji stopped, watching his visible breath fade from a sigh. Then he bent down to put a bouquet of flowers on a gravestone and laying out a cloth over a bed of grass in the middle of three stones for him to sit.

"Eijito, I know that we never met each other, but here I am still visiting your grave. Your family has been through a lot, but now, the Exiles, Aunt Senna, Uncle Amano, and his family are fine now.

I know that you were really happy when you saw Gin being born, it's just unfortunate that he is now beside you in this earth. Well, not really in there, so I'm sorry about that.

While I'm here…

Gin, Ringo. Your families are bigger than ever. The Sakato and the Akanami are much more tied together now, and it's all thanks to you two. Just the other day, your niece wanted to hear about you, so I told her lots of stories… and definitely not threw shade at you.

…

I hope that… if ever alternate timelines actually exist where the two of you are still alive… I hope that the two of you are happy and that you won't have to suffer this much again. You guys were still young, but I hope that it will all be peaceful days from then on.

I think… that's all I have to say.

Gin, Eijiro, and Ringo… I'll be going now."

▪ ▪ ▪

Silver Apple

By Yui Satoshi.

There is a boy named Silver.

He was a very unhappy child that doesn't know how to smile. He doesn't like people, and he always wanted to be alone.

There is a girl named Apple.

She is a cheerful and kindhearted young girl. She likes to smile, and she brightens up people's days.

A few years later, Silver and Apple met.

They have now grown up to be a young man and a young woman.

The first time Apple saw Silver smile was when she became interested with him. The two of them met, and they became friends.

But just when Silver is starting to know what happiness is, he got into an accident and got hurt.

For a long time, he was not able to see Apple and his friends.

So, Silver worked hard to heal and promised himself to become stronger and come back to his friends.

Because of being separated, Silver learned what love is. It is wanting to be with the person he cherishes the most, which is Apple.

Silver's friends and Apple cried when he came back home.

Silver returned becoming very strong. He can run fast, and he can now carry boulders.

But it turned out that Apple was also lonely without Silver. He has become special to her, and she also wanted to be with him.

And so, Silver and Apple decided to tell that they love each other, and they become together.

They learned how special the two of them meant to each other. Silver learned to smile more, and he once again became happy.

But while Silver's body is very strong, his heart is very weak. He remembered why he was always sad when he was a child. He pushed others away, and even made Apple cry.

But Apple did not give up. She is the only one that can accept Silver's pain, so she stayed with him until Silver realized that it's okay to become happy and let go of the past.

Apple taught Silver that it's okay to be sad sometimes, but she said that she will make his life happy. As she promised that, Silver also promised that he will protect her.

Seasons changed, and they met new friends. Silver has changed, and together with Apple, they helped their new friends get over their sadness.

Silver learned to be kind from Apple, and he began to love her more.

But one day… Apple fell very, very sick. There is no medicine in the world that can make her feel better.

Silver realized that she will lose her loved one. He cried, gave up, and accepted that she will lose Apple.

But the friends he helped in the past is now the one helping Silver. They learned that Silver has the power to make Apple feel better again.

As Silver watched the sad face of Apple on the bed, he gave her a kiss and Apple suddenly became better!

After all the sadness they overcame, they learned to cherish each other more.

One day, Apple said, "Silver! Let's plant an apple tree!" Outside their house, Silver dug a hole for Apple to plant an apple seed.

A few years later, the seed they planted became a big tree and it bore fruit of unique silver apples that shined brightly under the sun.

After picking a few fruits, they noticed that the color of the apple changed back to red. But once they took a bite, they said, "This is the best apple I have eaten!"

For more and more years, they took care of the tree and enjoyed its delicious fruit.

Then, Silver and Apple became married, and got blessed with a child. They shared the fruits and gave the child happiness.

From then, they became a happy family. Silver and Apple were glad that they stayed strong and overcame their hardships no matter what happened.

The family watched the tree become bigger and bigger. They lived a humble and peaceful life with friends. Silver said, "I could never ask for anything more as long as I can live happily with them."

There is a man named Silver.

He is a very happy person that smiles a lot. He is always grateful to the person that showed him that he too can be happy.

There is a lady named Apple.

She is a cheerful and kindhearted lady. She likes to smile, and she brightens up people's days. She is the one that made Silver happy.

Because of their love for each other, their family, and friends, they spent every day full of happiness.

The End.