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[waitingforplayer2]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, CHIAKI NANAMI.

FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX

*** galagamer has joined XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
<galagamer> This is Chiaki Nanami.
<galagamer> I'll get back to you as soon as I can!

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[waitingforplayer2]

[ The spear, falling through both of them. It's as if she can still feel it, and the flames licking at her bark. Even with days between them, the memory is still fresh.

But at this Nanami regards him with concern; because it wasn't her memory that they'd lived through. So it must have been his. ]

Was that how you died, in the simulation?

[luckless]

[His tongue feels like lead, weighed down within his mouth and unable to move. Nanami asks the most obvious question so blatantly, it's jarring. Isn't it obvious, he almost wants to reply back, but he doesn't. He couldn't. Even with all the pain filling the space between his ribs, he can't find the nerve to lash out.

So he doesn't. He just sits uncomfortably still, not moving further nor closer to her.]

In that memory... It switched our places. Or rather, it turned me into your AI self... And you were me.

[waitingforplayer2]

[ That part startles Nanami a little. She hadn't known that her AI self had been part of that original memory at all. Had the other her jumped into the blaze and been killed, along with him?

No-- he'd already talked a little of what had happened... about framing the other her. ]

But it went differently. [ Because he'd tried so hard to stop it. And because she'd wandered into the memory herself. ]

I'm-- I'm so sorry that you had to relive that.

[luckless]

I... I don't care about me...!

[Komaeda's voice pitches with a canid whine. His ears have peeled all the way back, his fluffy tail coiled around his hip. He doesn't look at her still, but he can feel her attention on him.

It feels like daggers.]

For you to have to endure something so awful... As if one death trap wasn't enough to live through... Why did it have to be mine?

[waitingforplayer2]

But it wasn't your fault...

[ She reaches for him again, placing a leafy hand on his shoulder. Trying to think of what to say, to drag him back out of his despair, into the world again. ]

Komaeda-kun-- even with things like that-- you tried so hard to save me... you were hurt just like me... there's no reason to blame yourself for what happened!

[luckless]

How could I not...? When I promised to protect you, and I nearly got you killed instead...

[He doesn't lean into her touch, neither does he pull away from it. It's comforting, even if he feels selfish for indulging in that warmth when he simultaneously feels undeserving of it.]

...If we weren't so lucky, if that memory had kept going... What part of you would I have lost to it...?

[waitingforplayer2]

[ Nanami falls quiet. It's the very loss of her own friends' memories that has distressed her so much, since the memory fog left the peninsula. Komaeda's right in that - had she lost any of them permanently, things might have been much worse.

But still she pulls him into a hug, even if he protests, or remains limp. ]

But you didn't lose me, Komaeda-kun. We were lucky. Even if it's a kind of unluck that we both went through it...

[ A long shuddering breath. ] Would it have been the same, if you hadn't jumped on top of me? Maybe in a way, your luck did help save both of us in the end, too...

cw suicide mention

[luckless]

Stop it.

[Komaeda pulls his head up from his arms, and though fur hangs in front of his eyes, the gaze he casts sideways to Nanami is full of pain—seen or not. She knows better than to bring up his luck like this, right? It feels like stabbing open an old and barely healing wound.]

What that was... My memory, it would've killed us both if there magic made it realistic enough. Don't you get it? I told you beofre that the past me used his luck to kill himself and make you throw the poison, that's what happened.

Me doing what I did in the memory... That wasn't luck. That was... Was me trying to die with you. I didn't want to be without you.