Make Them Love Me Or They'll End The World-Chapter 152: It’s Me Serica.
"Kentaro? It's me. Serica."
Her voice came thin through the speaker, the faint rush of wind carrying over the line like she was standing somewhere wide and open.
"Serica!" Kentaro's relief hit before the frustration. His palm pressed into the rough bark of the massive tree. "Why weren't you answering your phone?!"
"I-I don't know where I am," she whispered. He could hear the quiver in it, the tiny wet hitch that meant tears were building.
He dragged in a breath thick with sap and damp earth and forced himself to think. "Haruka, can you ping her location?" he asked over comms.
Static. Then Haruka's voice: "Trying, but the signal's bouncing. No precise fix, apologies."
"Great. We should've put proper tracking on the phones," he muttered, sweeping his gaze over green upon green: the large trunk, the mini forest hemming in the field, the feathering of leaves above that stained the sunlight a dim gold. He paced around the tree, shoulder brushing flaky bark, mind racing.
"Okay," he said, switching back to Serica. "Give me details. What do you see? Smell? Feel? Anything weird?"
There was a long, shaky inhale on the other end. "Um… Blue sky… Green grass… It smells like grass. The wind, um, I can feel a lot of wind on my face? And… There's a squirrel."
He stopped. Rewound. "A squirrel?"
He tipped his head back.
Thirty feet up, a slim silhouette was perched on a thick branch, the outline of a girl with her legs swinging, hair moving like a slow flame in the breeze.
"SERICA?!" His heart hit his ribs. "YOU'RE UP THERE?"
"Huh?" came over the phone, a little echo of confusion. Up above, the figure twisted, peered down through the leaves, and then, he didn't have to see her eyes to know they widened.
"Oh! Ken, I can see you! You're all the way down there!" She sounded more excited than scared, and somehow that was worse.
Kentaro pressed the phone tighter to his ear. "How did you even, no, forget that. Can you climb down?"
"I just ran up the tree. It looked fun," she said, as if explaining why she'd sampled a new flavour of ice cream. "Sure, I can come down!"
"Wait, wait, don't!"
She jumped.
For a fraction of a second, all he caught was the white of her calves scissoring through the air and the hard flash of sun on her eyes. Then.
WEEEEEEE!
She streaked past the lower branches like a silver fish slipping through reeds.
BOOM.
She landed in a low crouch that rattled the ground and made the trunk shiver. The impact kicked dust into his throat; he coughed, stumbled back, and lost his footing entirely, thumping onto his rear.
"Ow, ow, my back…" He groaned.
Serica popped up, dusted her skirt with quick little pats, then hurried over. Up close, her eyes sparkled like she'd ridden a rollercoaster. "Thanks for finding me, Ken!" she sang, cheeks pink.
"Sure," he managed, climbing to his feet and swatting clinging bark from his palms. "But maybe don't disappear up a tree next time."
She gave a tiny, repentant nod. "Hm."
They started circling the trunk together, her shoulder brushing his arm now and then, light, deliberate touches that felt practised, almost rehearsed. The bark was warm where the sun struck it, cold where shade pooled near the roots. Serica kept talking, too brightly, about spotting the tree from far away, how its height pulled her like a lighthouse, how the view made the park look like a toy set. The cadence was cheerful, the words were right, but the pauses were off, half-beats where the old Serica would've laughed without thinking. Kentaro let out a breathy laugh; he hadn't realised he'd been holding anyway. Under the pine-sweet air, he caught the faint powder of her shampoo; it twisted something gentle and painful in his chest.
Then she stopped dead.
"Ken… I'm sorry."
He turned. Her gaze had fallen to the ground, hair sliding forward to veil her face. She held herself very still, as if posing as "Serica being fine," and then a tear slipped off her lashes and darkened the canvas of her shoe. Another followed.
"Sorry for what?" He asked, softer.
She shook her head, and the bright, practised layer cracked. The words spilt out in a thin, shaking rush. "I tried. I'm trying so hard, but I still can't remember. Not you, not Yura, not Aria, not Tenka, no one. Not the school, not… Us. I keep pretending I get the jokes and laughing when everyone laughs and nodding when it feels like I should, but it's like… Like someone took scissors to my life and cut out the middle. And I can't get it back."
Her shoulders trembled. She pressed both hands to her chest, as if she could hold the borrowed version of herself together if she just squeezed hard enough.
Kentaro stared for a heartbeat, anger rising like heat under his skin, at Shaula, at the game, at a world that made girls carry bombs in their hearts. Then he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her in until the crown of her head rested beneath his chin.
"Hey," he murmured into her hair, voice steady though his throat had gone tight. "You don't have to pretend with me. Please don't cry. I'll get it back. I promise. Whatever it takes."
The bark pressed into his knuckles as he held her. He felt the slow, uneven heave of her breaths. Felt the way she clutched the back of his shirt like he might vanish if she let go.
She sniffled and lifted her face. Her lashes were wet and spiked, pupils glossy; up this close, he saw the tiny white fleck on her lower lip where she'd bitten it too hard.
"Do you promise?" She whispered. "Because I don't know how long I can live like this."
He nodded, something iron locking into place behind his eyes. "I swear. You, all of you, are the most important people in my life. I'll put everything into this. A hundred and ten per cent. No matter what."
Something unnameable flickered across her face, like recognition's silhouette behind a thin curtain.
She gave a small, watery laugh. "Okay. I'll… I'll try my best too. To remember. To not… Run up trees without telling you."
"That last one's non-negotiable," he said, and she made a noise that might have been a giggle strangled by tears.
They separated reluctantly. The breeze moved; a strip of sunlight slid over the bark and onto Serica's cheek, warming the tear tracks, turning them to glitter.
He checked the time. "It's getting late. Tenka's probably wrangling Yura and Aria with a bread crumb bribe by now."
Serica's mouth twitched into a real smile. "Or fighting a duck army."
"Please don't jinx us."
They began the walk back. For a while, neither of them spoke. The forest muffled the park's noises; all he could hear was the crunch of leaf litter under their shoes, the distant creak of a swing chain, a cicada's electric hum. The air tasted green.
Serica lagged behind Kentaro, her thoughts shifting from doubts about her memories to something else. "What does Kentaro like about me? Or the other Serica…" she murmured, pushing another branch aside. "If I can act more like the old Serica he knew, maybe I could get my memories back?" she wondered, nodding to herself before parting her lips.
"Kentaro," Serica said finally, so softly he almost missed it.
"Mm?"
She curled her fingers around his, just a little tighter. "The other me, the one you met in the plaza, and the girl you saved, the girl who… Who was with you every day? What did you like about her? Why did you save her? What makes her different from… From me right now?"
He let the question sit for a few steps. A branch brushed his shoulder; he pushed it aside, feeling the snap of twigs under his palm, the sticky drag of sap. He thought of the awkward first sling-shot plan of cold air and colder fear, of how she'd looked at him then, like she was certain she didn't deserve kindness and therefore couldn't risk wanting it.
"The day I met you was… A lot," he said, a laugh catching in his throat. "Tenka was about to tell me something, then the plaza warped into a Fracture Bloom. I got tossed in the deep end, and you were the ice at the bottom." He glanced at her. "Honestly, I'm still surprised you didn't turn me into a popsicle in under three seconds."
"Hehe… That sounds like something that Shogo person would deserve more," she murmured, lips curving.
Kentaro's eyebrow twitched. "That guy's put me through enough, I wouldn't mind that happening."
As they walked, he told her the story he remembered: the crash of white light and frozen shards, the ridiculous sling, the first small victory, the first real fear. He tried to keep it simple, concrete, the slip of his shoes on plaza tile, the smell of melted ice, the clang of a sign hitting metal. He watched her listen to the rhythms and the textures more than the facts, and every now and then her expression would soften at a beat he hadn't expected.
"Since that day," he said quietly, "I promised to protect you. The you who glares when she's jealous. The one who tries and tries and burns the eggs anyway. The you who gets soft in quiet moments and hides it badly. It doesn't matter if your memories are cut right now; you're still Serica to me. That won't change."
He stopped just before the treeline, where the light sharpened, and the sound of the park widened. "And I didn't save you because you were different. I saved you because no one, no Alberline, deserves to be dragged through that kind of pain alone. That day in the plaza, I said I'd protect you. So, I will. And honestly, it was probably you who saved me first." He said, letting out a dry chuckle, remembering the whole Plaza incident.
Serica halted beside him. Her eyes shone, the kind of wet that wasn't just about sadness. "So that's the Kentaro the other me loved," she said under her breath. "I can see why."
She put her hands behind her back and rocked once on her heels. "Okay, Ken. As long as you love me like before, I can wait. I can wait for my memories to catch up."
He smiled without meaning to. Then he followed her out of the shade.
The sun punched him in the face, hot gold, the smell of warmed dirt and cut grass flaring all at once. He blinked hard and lifted a hand to shield his eyes. The smile slid from his mouth before he knew why.
"What the..."
They both stopped.
