“That heart isn’t yours.”
The moment I heard Ren’s words, my heart gave one powerful leap deep inside my chest.
As if it were asserting its own existence.
“What are you talking about?”
“Five years ago, you underwent a heart transplant.”
“There’s no scar.”
I slipped my hand inside the collar of my shirt. My skin was smooth. The surgical scar I’d seen reflected in the ring’s memory was nowhere to be found.
“It wasn’t your body that was transplanted. It was the heart’s memories.”
“Hearts don’t have memories.”
“Normally, they don’t. But we were conducting an experiment to preserve emotions as physical responses.”
Ren started to approach me.
I took a step back.
The next words he was about to say had already arrived in the DM on my smartphone.
<He says that both your fear and your love were transplanted from someone else.>
“And?”
“Part of what you’re feeling for me right now comes from the donor’s emotions.”
It was exactly as predicted.
“So you’re saying that even my feelings for you are borrowed?”
“No. That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Before answering, Ren looked at my face.
He was choosing his words. Maybe even that pause had been predicted by the sender of the DM.
“I want you to know why you’re afraid of me before you remember it.”
“Of course I’m afraid. You tried to kill me five years ago.”
“I made it look like I was trying to kill you.”
My sister laughed. Coldly, with my face.
“You’re still making excuses?”
“Kasumi, you were there too. You should know it was meant to put Mio to sleep.”
“You stopped her heart.”
“For only seventy seconds.”
“So that means you didn’t kill her?”
Their voices crashed into each other.
I screamed.
“Don’t discuss how I died in front of me!”
The room fell silent.
My mother shifted on the couch and slowly opened her eyes.
“Mio…?”
This time, she had called me by my name.
I didn’t answer. I still didn’t know what would be transferred if someone called my name.
Mother looked from one version of me to the other, then slowly reached toward me.
“Which one is my daughter?”
I couldn’t answer.
My sister was silent, too.
Nana sat beside Mother and covered her with a blanket.
“Please rest for now. The police and an ambulance are on their way.”
A siren sounded in the distance.
Sara checked outside the window.
“They’ll be here in about two minutes. If they see the memory duplication, the information will reach the research institute, too.”
“The research institute?”
“That’s where Ren was. They’re coming to retrieve the records of the memory transplant.”
Ren picked up the terminal from the edge of the table.
“We’re leaving.”
“You’re running away?”
“To protect you and your mother.”
“You’re deciding everything on your own again.”
I snatched the terminal from his hand.
“I’ll decide whether we run or not. But first, tell me who the donor was.”
Ren’s gaze shifted to my sister.
She turned her face away.
“Don’t tell me it was you, Sis?”
“No.” My sister denied it immediately. “It wasn’t me.”
“Then who was it?”
Ren operated the terminal and displayed an old medical record.
<Emotional memory donor: F. M.>
There were only initials.
The donation date was July 17, five years ago.
The day before my memories had been erased.
“The name has been deleted.”
“Did you delete it?”
“You did. Five years ago.”
My sister spoke in a low voice.
“Mio knew the donor.”
“Who?”
“Ren’s wife.”
The air froze.
“You said you didn’t have a wife.”
I looked at Ren.
“Legally, I don’t.”
“More word games?”
“At the research institute, they called the donor paired with the emotional memory the spouse.”
“So she was his experimental wife?”
“Yes.”
“You put her emotions inside me?”
“You wanted it.”
I’d heard those same words over and over.
You decided five years ago. You left it behind five years ago. You wanted it five years ago.
“Don’t put the blame on me now.”
“I’m not blaming you.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me from the beginning?”
“If I told you, the fear that had been transplanted into you would wake up.”
“It’s already awake.”
The pain in my chest grew stronger.
White flowers. A hospital room. Ren’s hand. The flat tone of an EKG.
Fragments surfaced on their own, and my breathing grew shallow.
Nana supported my shoulders.
“Breathe slowly. I’m right here.”
I focused on her voice.
Inhale. Exhale.
This was my body. No matter whose emotions were inside me, I was the one suffering now.
The siren stopped in front of the house.
The doorbell rang.
“This is the police. Anyone inside, please respond.”
Nana stood up.
“I’ll explain.”
Sara stopped her.
“They’re not regular police.”
“How do you know?”
“They arrived too quickly. And there’s no sound of an ambulance.”
The doorbell rang again.
“Fujisaki Mio. Fujisaki Kasumi. Under the Memory Protection Act, we’re here to verify the circumstances.”
They knew our names.
Ren looked outside through a gap in the curtains.
“It’s the institute’s retrieval team.”
“Where do we go?” Nana asked.
“Back door. Sara, take care of her.”
“Wait. Is it really okay to move Mom?”
“It’s more dangerous to leave her here.”
Sara and Nana supported Mother.
My sister didn’t move.
“Kasumi, let’s go,” Ren called.
My sister shook her head, still wearing my face.
“I’m staying.”
“If they retrieve you, they’ll erase you.”
“That’s fine.”
“No, it’s not.”
The words came out of my mouth.
My sister looked at me in surprise.
“You hate me, don’t you?”
“I haven’t decided whether I hate you yet. So don’t disappear on your own.”
I grabbed my sister’s hand.
It was warm.
Even though she was an existence made of memories, her hand was as warm as any human hand.
“Come with me. We’ll get my face back from you later.”
My sister smiled just a little.
“That way of putting it sounds like the old Mio.”
“I am Mio.”
The lock on the front door turned from outside.
We went through the kitchen and out into the yard through the back door.
Nana and Sara supported Mother while Ren checked ahead. My sister and I ran at the back of the group.
A black van was parked in the alley behind the house.
“Get in.”
Ren opened the sliding door.
“You prepared this, too?”
“As soon as I knew you were coming to your parents’ house.”
He’d predicted this. He’d prepared for it.
Even so, there was nothing else I could do but get in.
There were three rows of seats inside. We laid Mother down in the middle row, with Nana beside her. While checking Mother’s pupils and pulse, Sara pressed the small terminal she was carrying against her chest.
“There’s nothing physically wrong with her. But her memories have been split into two layers.”
“Two layers?”
“Your mother’s own memories and the memories of Mio that Kasumi opened. If stimulated, they may mix.”
My sister lowered her head.
“I’m sorry.”
Mother remained asleep.
“If you’re going to apologize, use your own face when she wakes up.”
At my words, my sister touched her cheek.
“I don’t have a body to return to.”
“Sara said you’re still alive.”
“My body is alive. But it’s in a storage tank at the research institute. If I return to it, I’ll lose the past five years.”
“Why?”
“Because the person left in that body is who I was five years ago.”
My sister, too, was torn between who she was now and the body she’d had in the past.
If memories made a person, then throwing away five years to return would be close to dying. But if the body made a person, then my sister, borrowing my face, couldn’t exist anywhere.
“Ren knew?”
“He knew,” my sister answered. “He’s the one who had my body stored, too.”
From the driver’s seat, Ren kept his eyes on the road as he spoke.
“Kasumi wanted it.”
“That again.”
My sister and I spoke at the same time.
For an instant, Nana looked like she was about to burst out laughing. There was no way anyone should have been able to laugh in a situation like this, yet the corners of my mouth lifted, too.
My sister smiled awkwardly.
Seeing two identical faces smiling side by side was eerie. Even so, I felt closer to my sister than I had before.
“Do you have any idea who F. M. is?”
I asked my sister.
“Only one person. Mari Fukamachi.”
Ren’s shoulder moved slightly.
“Who is she?”
“A co-founder of the research institute. Ren’s experimental spouse and the first emotional memory donor.”
“Did she love Ren?”
“The records say she did. But I don’t know if it was real. Emotional readings can be manipulated.”
“When did she die?”
“The same day as your transplant.”
My heartbeat quickened.
Were the feelings inside me those of a woman who had loved Ren until the moment she died? Or were they feelings from someone who had hated him?
“Ren. Did you love Mari Fukamachi?”
Everyone in the van looked toward the driver’s seat.
Ren didn’t answer right away.
“I thought I loved her.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know whether those were my own feelings or a response created by the experiment.”
“Just like me.”
“That’s why I couldn’t tell you.”
“That’s exactly why you should have.”
Ren’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
“Mari died to find out whether her feelings were real.”
“What do you mean?”
“If a love response remained even after death, it would prove that the heart existed outside the body. She made herself the test subject.”
“And it remained in me?”
“Yes.”
I pressed a hand to my chest.
My heart was racing. I could no longer tell whether it was fear or the sensation of Mari’s memories drawing closer to the harbor.
As the van pulled away, the front door of the house opened. Men in black clothes circled around into the yard.
My sister looked back through the rear window.
“They’re following us.”
“I’ll cut the tracking.”
Ren entered a code into the terminal.
My smartphone vibrated.
Another DM.
<The Lover’s Instruction Manual—Article Seven>
<If he changes the escape route, get out of the car.>
<The donor of the emotional memories is waiting at the changed destination.>
Ren changed the route on the navigation system.
“We’re changing plans. We’re heading to the harbor.”
My sister’s face stiffened.
“Don’t go to the harbor.”
“Why not?”
My sister looked at my chest.
“Because the donor is supposed to be dead.”
A new destination appeared on the navigation screen.
<F. M. Memory Storage Facility>
Immediately afterward, a woman’s voice came through the speakers inside the van.
“Mio, you’ve finally come to return my heart to me.”