Chapter Text
Blink. Blink, blink.
How long had she been awake? A few minutes? An hour? She rolled over, looking at the digital clock: the only light in her room this late in the evening. Lain blinked, letting her eyes reach out and grasp the forms of what she recognized as numbers. 5:42 In the morning, not the evening? Huh. She went to bed at 10 last night, so that means she's been asleep for... 7 hours and some change, give or take? Good enough.
Lain Iwakura sat up and felt her way through the two-room apartment. It was small and run-down, and even after five years—give or take—she still had to find the right switch. No, no, that one? Yes, that one. Lain flicked on the lights to her apartment and trudged to the bathroom, wiping a bit of sleep out of her eyes and stifling a yawn. Today was... Lain looked at her calendar and waited for her eyes to grab today's date. Oh. It was today. The Busy Day. The Day that was Busy, the Day specifically designed to be Busy, the Busy Day. That day. The day where she had six things to do, and- Lain counted on her fingers. Six? Six. Six things to do, and three of them involved talking to people in some capacity. Lain sighed.
Fantastic.
Well, first things first. She closed the bathroom door behind herself and took out a hair band she didn't remember falling asleep with. Her hair fell in layers, ending right below her ears. The one lock of hair she kept longer than the others still had the clip in, and she felt the need to take it out, run it under the tap, and put it back in. Toothpaste, toothbrush, brush teeth. Lain watched her own eyes as she brushed. How old were these eyes of hers? The toothbrush went still in her mouth. When did they become her eyes and stop being a pair of eyes that belonged to a girl? When did that girl end and Lain begin? She's stopped brushing her teeth. Right. Teeth.
Lain went at it with a bit more vigor, eventually spitting out the toothpaste, gargling some mouthwash, and finishing it off with a glass of water that she also spit into the sink. The mirror swung open and Lain rifled through the medicine cabinet, looking at the names of medication that never worked over the years and got relegated to the back. An empty box of Luvox, Lexapro from years ago, Effexor she hadn't touched in years, Zyprexa that she should throw out, Risperdal just as empty; the bottle of Tofranil was still half full, but she was told to stop using that when she switched to Aurorix. Aurorix! There it was. Now she just needed to find the others.
Clozaril was easy to find, but Buspirone liked to hide; Lamictal, on the other hand, made itself obvious. All of a sudden there were four pills in her hand, and Lain swallowed them one by one. Aurorix, Clozaril, Buspirone, Lamictal. One, two, three, four. Wash it down with some more water from the tap. Lain took a sip of sink water. Then it was onto hair. Lain looked at her hair. Messy. Bedhead had wormed its way into her head and she grabbed a brush. Man, hair was a struggle: there was a really stubborn knot she couldn't pull at too hard because it hurt but couldn't pull too softly because it wouldn't come out if she didn't. Ow- ow! There we go. The rest of her hair was thankfully easy to brush, and it took Lain about ten seconds to realize that she'd have to do it all over again after she got out of the shower.
Ughhhhhh.
Whatever. She still had on clothes from three days ago; it was time to get out of them and put on something else. Lain went back to her room and fished around in the Clean Clothes Hamper, pulling out a plain white shirt and a pair of jeans. Good enough. She carried them to the bathroom and got in the shower, turning on the water and spending a bit of time trying to find the right position to keep it at so it's not too hot, but not too cold. She's thinking about moving it a centimeter, right? No, not a centimeter. Lain found the spot and got back under the faucet.
She liked the soap she bought; it didn't smell like anything and it made her skin sticky, for lack of a better term. How long had it been, now? Five years? Lain put a hand on the shower's fiberglass frame. Six years? Realistically, she should've known, but everything from back then was... fuzzy. No, was it closer to eight? She knew at one point, but- did she? Ten. Ten years? Was it really ten years? She was twenty-five now, so it must've been. She was sixteen back then, right? Or fifteen? Fourteen, yes. So it had been ten years and some change: her birthday wasn't here yet, after all.
Lain bent her head back and started working with her shampoo: unscented, like the soap. After a few seconds of drying Lain let her hands and hair fall, staring up at the ceiling. At what point did the water end and the shower begin? Was all the water in her pipes destined to become shower water? When did-
Knock, knock, knock.
Oh, dammit. Was it already 7:30? Was it really? Yeah, it must've been. How long had she been in the shower? It took her a second to recognize that the water was freezing. When did it get cold? Her fingers and hands were wrinkled and pruned. Lain shut off the water and quickly moved to dry herself off, not bothering with completely drying herself off and instead going for "good enough". Her hair was all messed up from the towel.
Ughhhhhh.
Knock, knock, knock, again. Lain quickly threw on the clothes she grabbed and walked to the door, brushing a few hairs out of her face and putting her clip back on. Deep breath, steel your fists, open the door. You've got this, Lain!
"Good morning!" Lain tried to smile. The social worker that had been assigned to her was a tall, middle-aged woman, with black hair that fell down to her hips and a mole on her lower lip that Lain managed to fix her eyes on when eye contact was out of the question. "I know this is a bit earlier than our usual visits, but I've got a tight schedule today. Can I come in?"
"Y-yes." Lain stepped aside and let Ms. Sakamoto in. "Nothing's really changed."
"Any issues with your neighbors or landlord?"
"No. My landlord gave me an extension on rent last month, actually. I like him."
"Did you not meet rent?"
"I had to work a few extra hours and take some money out of my personal account, but it wasn't that bad. I tried to put together a new-" Lain cleared her throat "-a new budget, and my manager agreed to start giving me more hours whenever I work in general. I'm on the closing shift now." She has a pimple right where her glasses are supposed to rest on her face. See it?
"How much longer do you work per day?" Ms. Sakamoto wrote something down on her clipboard.
"Uh... about two hours, so it isn't much. Just a couple thousand more yen." Lain tried to smile again, this time managing a small one. "I did manage to save up for a TV, though. It's a small one, but I didn't spend a lot last month and I got to dip into my savings a little bit."
The TV in question was an old CRT, some ten years out of date and staticky with cables that had to be manually adjusted every so often. It was a TV, though, and for Lain it beat the Hell out of reading the same books over and over.
"Awesome." Lain doubted that. "Glad to hear that everything's being covered. Still taking your medication?"
"Yes."
"Awesome. Same plans for the future? Still trying to find a better job?"
"Yes. With the new hours I have, though, I might stop looking for a little bit. I don't want to quit this job to start working somewhere that pays less." She's trying to be honest: shut up, already!
"Yeah, I get that. Once I settled into this job, I stopped applying for other ones like that." Miss Sakamoto snapped her fingers. "Just a few more questions. How are you doing mentally?"
"It's been okay." Lain looked away, pinching and rolling one of her fingers. "Same as always, I guess. Nothing good, nothing bad."
"No episodes? Nothing like that?"
"You'd know." Lain meant it as a joke. Judging by Ms. Sakamoto's face, it didn't come across very well. "Uh, no."
"Alright. Just two more questions I need to ask you and then I'll be out of your hair."
"Quick meeting."
"Yeah, I've got a lot on my plate today. Sorry if you wanted a longer one." Miss Sakamoto gave her a smile that Lain couldn't return. "Let's see... how safe do you feel?"
"...What do you mean?"
"In general. Do you feel unsafe at all? Afraid of anything, anxious?"
"N-No." Why was she asking her this? Was there something she should feel unsafe about? What a weird question. A weird question in every sense; it felt out of place, like a puzzle piece that didn't fit in with the rest. Lain looked down at the floor, picking at the skin around her knuckles for no reason in particular. "Not more than usual, I mean..."
"'Usual'?"
"A-anxiety," Lain explained, twiddling her thumbs. "Doctor stuff, you know."
"Right. Alright, let's finish it up for today. Do you think you might need any extra assistance?"
"No." Lain shook her head. "No, I'm okay."
Because she was. She really, really was. This was the best things had been for a long time, actually. Lain looked up at the ceiling fan, turned off for the springtime. She wants some new lightbulbs. Yeah, she did. Lain blinked and looked back at Miss Sakamoto, who had finished up on her clipboard.
"Awesome. Alright, that's gonna be everything. Good luck with the extra hours. See you next time."
"Bye."
Miss Sakamoto left and Lain sighed, closing the door behind her and sliding the lock into place. She fell against the door and slid down, putting her arms on her knees and looking up at the ceiling. New lightbulbs were definitely on the shopping list, but she didn't get paid until Friday. Today was Wednesday. Sigh.
So. One out of six things done. On to number two.
One out of six. Yes, she just said that. Lain stood up and rolled her shoulders, walking back in her room to check the time. 8:15 already. Okay, that should be enough time. She pulled out the chair in front of her computer and sat down, cracking her fingers and turning on the PC. The fans began to whirr, and Lain twiddled with her fingers waiting for the PC to turn on. While waiting, Lain opened the notebook next to the monitor and skimmed through it. That's not a problem, that's not a problem- bingo, there it is. The problem she was supposed to fix today involved a memory leak in a program: which one? Her email program, apparently?
Lain has new mail. She opened it up. Having 385 unread e-mails was probably part of the problem, but she knew better than that being the diagnosis. To the administrative console it was! Lain opened it up and typed in a few commands: maybe she should just open up a heap profiler and let it run for a few minutes. Or, maybe... Lain opened up the heap profiler and opened a few emails. Bingo. Opening up an email was allocating memory that wasn't freed for some freakin' reason. Wait, that one was, but that one wasn't.
Lain's confused. Now she's looking for differences in the emails. Yes, yes, she is. She knew better than to tell them to shut up at this point. It was a simple difference; one email had an attachment and the other didn't. It was only when she opened up the former that memory got allocated and stayed allocated. Simple fix. The free function was there, but it was- ahhhh, there it is. The smart pointer. Circular reference. Amateur mistake. One she should've caught. Stupid mistake. Yes, she just thought that, thank you. Lain sighed and re-opened the mail service. That fixed it, right? Okay, good. On to task three of the day.
Lain's stomach growled.
...On second thought. She walked to her kitchen and rifled through a cupboard, finding a half-used bag of white rice. The refrigerator was mostly empty, but there were a couple of eggs in there. Egg rice? Egg rice. Lain grabbed an egg and threw the rice into a small bowl, setting it on a hot plate and looking for a good egg to put in. This one was too big, this one too small, and this one wasn't white enough. Once she found an egg that suited her she cracked it into the now-hot rice, mixing it together with a little bit of soy sauce, a little bit of salt, and a pair of chopsticks before putting the bowl on a paper plate. The rice turned frothy and Lain took a bite.
Eh.
Good enough.
Lain sat on a small folding chair and looked out the window while she ate her rice. Far in the distance, between the skyscrapers and waterfront properties, was Tokyo Bay. If there was one benefit to living in Minato, it was the view; even if she could only see just a little sliver. No sun, unfortunately; the skies were dreadfully overcast instead. It was probably going to rain today. Good. Lain liked the rain. Sure, the sun was nice, but the best part about the sun was the way it shimmered on the surface of Tokyo Bay. Everything else was better in the rain.
Welp. Lain finished her rice and put it in the sink, filling the bowl with water and letting it soak. Now it was really time for task three of the day. She walked to her bathroom and grabbed a broom and dustpan. Cleaning. Facemask attained, broom and dustpan in hand. Sweeping time. Lain got the hardest places to get into first: under the bookshelf, under her desk, under the dresser.
Lain liked cleaning. It was therapeutic. Sometimes it even made the voices... well, if not stop, then at least quiet down enough to stop (constantly) interrupting her train of thought. Most of the time. There was one time she didn't expect the one that shouted at her to shout at her and she bonked her head on the desk she was cleaning under. Maybe it was because her body was actually doing something: her mind was being forced to focus on everything around her and didn't have a place to fill in the blanks with? Maybe. That sounded right. It probably wasn't. But hey, fun to think about.
Lain dumped out the dustpan and replaced her broom for a fan duster: and her floor for a step-stool. This was her least favorite part. Even with the facemask on the dust got into her eyes and her face and- hit-chou! Sniffle. Greeeeat. Lain wiped her eyes with her hand and got back to dusting the fan. At least she only had one: and at least it wasn't over her bed. Each blade was cleaned and she went back to replace the duster for the broom, sweeping the dust into the dustpan and dumping it into the trash can.
Was there something else she was supposed to do today? Wait, yes, there was. Two more things. Budgeting and work. She sat down at her computer and opened a small spreadsheet. Budget time. How much money did she have? Lain didn't really know off the top of her head. It wasn't too much. The notebook—well, more ledger—she kept everything in was somewhere in this mess. Don't touch that! Lain opened her drawer anyways. There it was. She should really label these things.
Last week, she ended up with a little more money than average: did she have that much left? 25,655 yen? She looked around in the mess on her desk for her wallet. It was... somewhere in here. Uh-oh. It wasn't where she normally put it. Okay. Uh. Where could it be, then? Oh, great, she lost her wallet! Lain rummaged around a few more drawers. Wasn't in any of them. Uh-oh, uh-oh.
Behind her bed? No. Under her desk? Nope! By her door with her apartment keys? Nada! She was running around like a headless chicken now: when did her breath get caught in her throat? Where was it? Where was it?! It wasn't anywhere! She was going to end up tearing apart her entire apartment and not find it-
Oh.
Why is it on the sink?
Lain breathed a sigh of relief and ran over to the sink to pick up her wallet. She checked how much was in it as she walked to her desk: a 10,000 note, a few thousands (either three or four: she'd figure that out at her desk), a couple hundreds, and some loose coinage. Spend it on something! Sitting down at her desk let her do some actual counting. 13,255 yen with an extra 5 yen coin that she kept in its own little pocket for good luck. Not bad, all things considered, especially this far into the week. Time to get to writing. Lain clicked her pen and made a new little table in her notebook-ledger.
She'd have to pay 75,000 yen for rent, like always. The system would cover most of that: if that's all she'd had to pay for, then she'd be left around 3,000 to spare before her paycheck and after the system helped out. Don't you have another pen? The system would thankfully pay entirely for therapy and her medicine and give her an allowance for food and stuff, but the rest would be hers. She'd probably be earning another 250,000 yen this month give or take, but so much of that goes to exemptions and taxes! Ugh. Lain held her head in her hands. This was starting to get confusing, like always. So... what? She'd have about 90,000 yen going into next month?
Maybe it'd be different if she used her other pen. That's... doable. More than she had this month. That's not enough! It's never enough!
Lain checked her alarm clock. It was already a little past noon: she had work in... four hours. Okay. Budget (for this month) done, apartment (mostly) cleaned, Ms. Sakamoto talked to (talked through, as usual), clothes on (still gotta put on her work vest!), NAVI debugged (for now). Okay. Everything was done. For right now. She sighed. That meant she had time to do the work she actually wanted to do!
The walk back to her room was a brisk one, and Lain couldn't help rubbing her hands together like she always did when she sat down. They'll shock you! She sat down in front of a little desk in front of the only window in her room and picked up the little plushie. It was another Bike-chan, complete with wires and servos and little electronics. If she could get this one to work...
The little stuffed dog—or dogs, rather, given that she'd experimented on who knows how many of them, had been a project of hers for years now. Ever since she lived back with her family—before the school year, before the break, before the... everything. Lain cleared her head. What's she trying to do this time? Right now there was a very pressing detail that needed her attention. This was the first model she was trying to get to walk by itself: the only issue is that its legs were so small that the servos she was trying to fit in as knees didn't quite fit. There had to be an easier way to do this. Well, it wasn't the servos. The servos fit fine. It was the linkages.
She started to fiddle with different arrangements. All she needed was the knee to bend and the leg to walk, at least theoretically. This was harder than she expected it would be: it was harder than making Bike-chan's mouth move up and down so he could bark, which she could do in her sleep by now. There's a spot there. See it? Lain looked a little closer. That could work, but it wouldn't bend at the knee! It's supposed to bend at the knee. That's how legs are supposed to work. Bend at the knee, that's how you walk. Lain began to chew on the side of her thumbnail. She could get away with bending where Bike-chan's leg met its body—his "hip"—but that would look ugly.
Before she could contemplate this in earnest, however, her alarm sounded. That meant it was time to get ready for work. Lain walked over and turned it off, leaving Bike-chan looking like a rather unfortunate autopsy patient. Turn the light off. Right! She had to turn the light off. Saves money. She flicked the little lamp that lit up her desk off (when did she turn it on?) and put on her bright green worker's vest and little visor. After running back to the bathroom to make sure everything was right, she took the biggest step of the day so far.
Walking outside.
The brightness was nearly disorienting. Wasn't it supposed to rain today? Where did the clouds go?! Even the visor she had strapped on didn't really help (probably because it was, for some reason, translucent): she couldn't get her elbow to her face to cover her first sneeze. The second and third were caught, though. Stupid sun. Thankfully, work wasn't too far away. You shouldn't be here! She could walk to and from it without much hassle. Do you like going to work? She didn't, really, but she had to. It was already well past noon. Did she eat lunch? Maybe. If she didn't, then she could get it at work. No big deal. That was one of the perks of working at a gas station.
A lady in old Russian clothes was watching her from the not-quite-rush hour crowd. Lain knew better than to stare. There was nothing else too interesting on her way to work outside of a bright flash of something passing through the corner of her eye, so she stopped paying attention and just kind of let her body go on autopilot for the rest of the walk. There was something oddly cathartic about letting her head just become a mess of voices and sounds: she didn't even recognize that she'd gotten to the store until she blinked a couple of times and shook her head.
Time to clock in. Sigh. The bell chimed as she opened the door and re-adjusted her visor.
"Good evening, Lain."
"Hello, Mr. Jitsukawa." Mr. Jitsukawa was an older man. His family had owned this gas station for a couple of generations: ever since the occupation. Does he have a new shirt on? He was well into his 50s, with his goatee already turning a little gray and wrinkles decorating his fat but narrow head. The pair of large square glasses he had on paired surprisingly well with a widow's peak that was only growing more narrow and revealing more forehead by the minute. Don't look at the birthmark!
"I'm going to be heading out for a little bit before we close today. I won't be too long: can you handle things here for, say... thirty minutes or so? I might be a little quicker than that."
"S-Sure." She could do that. Probably. Thirty minutes before they close—it's never busy then. The gas station in general was never too busy. It was really only her, Mr. Jitsukawa, and a few other people that alternated in and out throughout the day. She didn't know any of their names. Never really bothered to.
"Great! Thank you. Like I said, I'll probably be out for about half an hour. I'll be back before we close: I'm probably going to leave around 8." They closed at 9. Okay. She was usually by herself up here anyways. "If you need me, I'll be in the office."
"Okay."
Mr. Jitsukawa retreated to the back of the store and Lain got to work. Not checking anybody out yet, obviously, but the menial stuff. Organizing some of the shelves, resisting the urge to pocket one of those delicious nougat bars, and grabbing the old Conion boombox that they used as a replacement for an actual ceiling-radio-system-thingy. She changed the setting and rummaged around in her bag: she didn't remember grabbing it, but she definitely had it on her. There it was. Mr. Jitsukawa didn't really care what she put on the radio. That was nice. Lain's wondering what it looks like inside. No she wasn't! ...Not this time, anyways.
The thing she'd pulled out of her bag was an old English-speaking CD that she picked up well over a decade ago. She didn't really understand any of the lyrics, but she'd listened and re-listened to it so many times that she knew them all by memory. Mostly. There were a few more complicated words that she never got the hang of. Nonetheless, she popped open the CD case, stuck it in the boombox, and pressed play.
"And you don't seem to understand," she mouthed along as she got back to stocking the shelves. Oh, wait! She should probably put her bag back behind the counter. The bell rung right as she got there: convenient. "Welcome."
"Good afternoon," the customer said. She was a lady: a very pretty one, Lain noted. Ah. "Could I get 700 on pump one? And, uh... some of these."
Peach gummy rings. Lain didn't like them very much. Throw them away! She tried to put the thought out of her mind as she typed in how much she'd asked for and scanned the gummy rings. There was something undeniably familiar about her: maybe it was the hair, or... those eyes? The customer hadn't looked at her, but Lain kept an eye on her out of the corner of her eye. Lain is staring. Her eyes were big and gray, almost matching the color of her darker hair. She must've been around the same age as Lain.
"That'll be... 1,172."
"Okay. Give me just a secon-" The customer finally looked at her. Oh. Oh. Familiarity flashed across her face and it was like a lightbulb flicked on in Lain's brain.
"Alice?"
"Lain? Lain!" Alice laughed, unexpectedly grabbing Lain's hands. "Oh my God, hi! It's been so long! You have no idea- oh, it's so good to see you!"
Was it? Lain looked away. It wasn't like she wasn't happy to see Alice—in fact, she started smiling and didn't even notice—but this just felt so... abrupt. Lain laughed and resisted the urge to jump over the counter and hug her: how long had it been? Five, six years?
"How long has it been?" Alice asked. "It's been forever!"
"Few years." Lain laughed again. "It's great to see you."
"We need to catch up! You look great." There's the butterflies! She gained the courage to look back at Alice, staring wide-eyed at her. "I... I was worried, honestly. But you look great! I'm on my way home from work. I've passed by this place so many times! If I knew you worked here..."
"You can stop by more." Lain didn't mean to interrupt her: she did anyways. "S-sorry."
Alice just laughed. More butterflies in Lain's stomach: this was one feeling she did not miss. Miss? Did she miss Alice? Yeah. She guessed she did. Remember that night in your room? Back when she'd been so far gone? Yeah. Thought about it every night, even if she didn't want to. Did Alice? Maybe. Hopefully not.
"I missed you," Alice said. Lain was very thoroughly dragged out of her train of thought. "We should get some tea or something. Catch up!"
"Y-Yeah. We should." Lain cleared her throat. "Anyways, uh..."
"Right." That was tinged with a little laugh and Lain's legs almost turned to jelly. Did she really miss Alice this much? It was an almost foreign feeling. Alice swiped her card on the reader and put it back in her wallet. "I'd offer a phone call or something, but that's less personal, you know?"
"I also... don't have a phone," Lain awkwardly admitted. "The one I had in school broke a long time ago."
"So did mine." Alice grabbed her hands again. "It was so good to see you. How does meeting at that new tea shop near Shiba Park sound?"
"Uh... that sounds great." Wait. She didn't really process what she'd said earlier. Meeting somewhere? With her? In public?! She elation that filled her body quickly fizzled away and was replaced with an all-too familiar feeling. It's exciting, isn't it? Lain took her hands away from Alice's and started rubbing them together. "I'll... do you want to do it tomorrow?"
"I'll be working until 5 tomorrow. I'll see you then! It was so good to see you."
"Y-You too."
Lain watched her as she walked out and started filling her car. It was pretty and black, like her hair. It was almost impossible to wrench her head away from the window, get away from the counter, turn her back to the window, and start organizing the shelves again. Focusing on the music helped. When was the last time you talked to a friend? Ten years, she remembered. Ten years ago, back when everything happened.
"I left it all to you," Lain mouthed along to the song. "In the light of confusion..."