Extra 3: do you remember you?

—–Translated by daydrop. Please read on the original site at daydrop.nowaki.net.

Translator Note: This short story references the events in “FOOLS RUSH IN.”

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Ushio was playing with his cell phone in bed when he exclaimed, “Whoa.” It wasn’t that loud, but the surprise was clear in his voice, so Kei opened his eyes unconsciously, although he was falling asleep, and asked, “What?”

“Oh… I totally forgot about it.”

“Oi, are you listening to me?”

“I completely forgot about it.” Ushio looked at Kei and repeated himself.

Uh, is he okay?

“What did you forget?”

“What do you think it is?”

“If you forgot to file your taxes, go hold a press conference and issue your apology right now.”

“Nah, it’s not anything that serious. Well, maybe it’s similar?”

“Then what is it!?”

After all that stringing along, Ushio answered, “It’s a secret.”

He added, “You’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Say it now.”

“Now, now, a flustered Kunieda-san only gets a little rice.”

“That’s because of your damn scooping!”

“Don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it~”

Ushio came over to hug Kei and started humming. He seemed to be in a very good mood.

Seriously, what was with him?

When Kei returned home the next day, there was a compact video camera sitting on the table.

“Do you remember this?”

“It’s your GoPro.”

How could he forget? That ridiculous morning after all that drinking.

“What about it?”

“I forgot that I had lent it out to someone all this time.”

“Huh?”

Apparently a friend of his had asked to borrow it for some kind of trek abroad.

“Are you stupid?” Kei frowned. “Don’t recklessly lend something so expensive to other people.”

Plus the trip had been overseas with no real purpose. With the huge risk of theft, loss, or damage to the camera, he felt like the camera was somewhat dingy now. And if the guy was a friend of Ushio’s, it seemed like he would go to places off of the beaten path in Asia, the Middle East, or South America.

“Well, equipment are essentially toys pretty much~ There are only a handful of pieces that are indispensable for our work, and the rest you just try to get a hold of and touch to see what you think about it. And once you figure that out, then it’s like it’s enough… Oh, but Kunieda-san is a separate matter, got it?”

“I know that without you saying it!”

“I lent it out and totally forgot that I had done so. Well, more like I forgot that I even had it.”

Apparently it was during the time when he had family troubles, and anything more than a 30-centimeter radius outside of his range, he hadn’t paid attention to. Maybe Ushio had unconsciously written it off as a farewell gift, thinking that he didn’t need it back anymore.

“So the friend returned to Japan last month, and he had trouble getting in touch with me because my phone number changed, but yesterday I got an email from him, and after meeting up again, he returned it to me this afternoon. Along with this.”

Ushio held out something pressed between his thumb and index finger, and Kei widened his eyes.

“Hey, that SD card.”

“I had left it in the camera when I lent it out.”

How could he just say that he had left it in the camera? Didn’t it contain that on there? The video of Kei, Ushio, and Tatsuki drinking together, and… Wait, that part wasn’t filmed. It was never filmed in the end, so it was fine. No, it wasn’t fine. Even if it was just a part of his head in the video, it was enough of a damn bomb.

“What are you going to do about it!?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Don’t ‘what do you mean’ me! That friend of yours! You better go off him now!”

“Why are you saying things that a mafia boss would say? I’m sure that he didn’t watch it.”

“How do you know that?”

Ushio answered with a blank look like he really didn’t understand Kei’s panic. “I mean, if there’s a memory card left inside a camera that you borrowed, normally you wouldn’t look at what’s on it.” 

“Huh…?”

“What? Would you look?”

“No…”

What? Was it one of those? Like those questions that asked if you would look at someone else’s cell phone or not? Well, the decent thing to do was to not look at it, yeah…

“Oh, so you would look~ I see~ So you’re that kind of person~”

“Quit it. Don’t say it like there’s something wrong with my humanity.”

“He’s not the type of person who can keep quiet about those things. If he saw it, he would say something when I saw him. Anyway, even if he saw it, it was nothing but drunken antics.”

“Maybe drunken idiots are fine with drunken antics, but I’m not fine with it!”

“He’s not a TV person and doesn’t even own one at home. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know who Announcer Kunieda is.”

“Whatever, don’t save such stupid things, you blockhead!”

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry.”

“Apologize more. Do it more thoroughly.”

“So let’s go watch a nostalgic video together.”

“Oi, are you listening to me?”

Ushio very conveniently muted the complaints and pulled Kei over to the hanging roller shade. The recording wasn’t worth a second screening (or on a big screen) in his opinion, but he figured that he wouldn’t get dinner unless they watched it first. Kei reluctantly sat down on a cushion left on the floor and waited for Ushio to set up the projector.

“I’m turning off the lights.”

“Hurry it up.”

The projector lit up the white screen, and after a brief blank image, the recording played off of the tiny storage card.

“…No, wro~ng!”

Yeah, this was it. Even as he watched it now, it was stupid and stupid and stupid. Why did he have to watch this dumb thing after a long day of work? Kei felt dissatisfied about it, but as the familiar conversation played, he couldn’t take his eyes off of the screen.

Were the walls really this color? He noticed the feeling of the lights, and the shape and the height of the bed frame. The sound of it creaking as it supported people’s weight on it. Ushio’s house no longer existed, but a small fragment of it had been stored here.

“Even without filming any of it, I remember everything.”

That was the last line of the video from Ushio. Kei had also thought the same thing at the time. That he would remember everything. But it wasn’t the case. It had faded. He had forgotten things. Only a year or so had passed, but the things that weren’t always at his side had become ephemeral. How many steps was it from the front door to the stairs? How many steps did the stairs have? How tall was the ceiling? What about the size of the windows? The image was all too vague, and all that he was left with was the sentiment that he would remember.

The pain of forgetting started from the moment when they learned that they had forgotten. That was why his heart hurt, and Kei pushed his head into Ushio’s shoulder. Ushio stroked his head gently.

“…I’m glad that we still have this.”

Kei nodded his head faintly. Fingers ran through his hair over and over again. His hair was still styled to Kunieda-san’s specifications, but it was gradually mussed, and he became the Kei who only belonged to Ushio.

“We might update this place again in the future, so let’s try to film it as much as we can.”

Kei nodded again, and Ushio stopped the video, shifting his arm from Kei’s head to his shoulders.

“Okay, let’s start right away.”

Ushio hugged Kei tightly, and Kei said frantically, “Oi.”

“You’re the one who said to hurry it up earlier.”

“I didn’t mean it that way! Anyway, what can we even film with the room this dark!?”

“I’ll turn the lights on~”

“Quit it!”

He would lose things in exchange for the new days to come, and he was sure that he would one day lose a number of seconds from this moment. Only one thing was certain—that he wouldn’t be alone in that journey.

—–Translated by daydrop. Please read on the original site at daydrop.nowaki.net.

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