Chapter Text
…you know, we haven’t really got to know this world since we were teleported here…… so recently I am thinking of travelling around the world…
For real? I thought you always said “Touch grass? No!”
Yeah? But don’t you want to go out and see if there are any differences or similarities comparing to where we came from?
I think staying here is fine, I like where and how we are right now.
Eyyyyy, what do you guys think about here? This ancient building looks cool, reminds me of a place where my grandma took me--
We have been there before, I guess it looks ok in pictures, but probably isn’t anything alike what you described to us.
Oh you guys already seen it? Then I guess I can just go by myself--
No! You are not going anywhere! I mean, travelling alone is UNPOG!!
Hello there, my clever boy, where do you plan to go in this late night?
You guys are acting weirdge lately…and I need a break…
Ahh, reasonable, but I am afraid I can’t agree with that…
What do you mean…wait, why, how---
…please don’t force us to do this, you know we don’t want to hurt you…
Then there are yelling, struggling, shouting… and just before everything when into complete darkness, a deep thick voice whispers “Now you belong to us, forever…Shu…” and immediately Shu senses the words created a tight binding feeling, which bonded him with someones...
…flashes of random things start appearing around the peripheral of his consciousness, locks of golden hair strands under a white hat, a pen-tip shaped earring, a fox-eared hat, and a red tassel earring… Shu panicked upon seeing those things and cries while trying to run away from them---
Shu Hikarino wakes up to a fierce sudden jolt, alongside with a deep feeling of lost and emptiness, while his whole body is drenching in cold sweat.
Everything was in a blur and it took a few moments to notice that he is breathing heavily and trembling violently, lying in an completely unfamiliar room.
There are pale-white curtains neatly tied on sides, wide-opened French-style windows, and a stylish dark-wood wardrobe occupying the wall opposite the bed—but most importantly, there are no computer in the room.
This is not his room.
Also at the same time, Shu Hikarino realizes that he doesn’t know how his original room should look like.
But something is missing, and everything looks absolutely wrong, Shu jumps up and tries to fled out of the bed, but immediately falls back on the sheets because of severe dizziness due to the combination of low blood sugar level and being pulled out of sleep by shock.
“What…the…heck…” He mutters and sensing that his heartbeat starts going really fast that it feels like it will burst out of his chest any moment.
He can feel the emptiness from deep down inside, he losses something crucial, something essential, but he can’t remember anything.
It left a huge hole in his soul.
Panicking and losing himself in his emotions, Shu fails to notice that sparkles of green fire starts flickering on both side of his shoulders, at the same time an unseen pressure starts to fill-in the room to push everything around, like a strong wind whirling in the small space.
A high-pitched beeping sound pulls Shu back to reality, and he noticed that it came from a futuristic-metallic wrist band on his left hand.
Shu blinks a few times and slowly raise his left hand to check on it—this looks somewhat familiar.
There is a small red dot blipping loudly on the screen with lots of words and numbers running wild on top, even though Shu doesn’t understand how these figures work, but he is guessing that this probably means nothing good.
And that is when Shu finally remembers, this is from Fulgur Ovid, the cyborg with a greyish-white hair from the future, who insisted Shu to keep this on at all time, mentioning that this is a health or something monitoring machine.
…Frick, that means Fulgur and Uki must have been notified by the alert system.
Right on the cue, a few soft knocks landed on the door, followed by Uki’s soft voice: ”Shu, you ok?”
He tried to open his mouth to muster something to reassure the person outside that he is fine, only to notice that his throat was too dry to the point that it hurts just by trying to speak.
So he reach out for the phone charging beside the bed and proceed to send a short text - ”M ok, no worries”.
The knocks pause and everything went dead silent for a while, which causes Shu to feel the familiar churning in his belly again, and the green sparks starts reappearing on his shoulders.
Please don’t come in, please don’t come in, please don’t come in…is the only words he can think of.
Just before the burdening pressure becomes too much to the point that it will trigger another panic attack, Shu senses something seeps in from behind the door.
It is a form of enigmatic energy that can’t be perceive by any kind of human senses, but Shu can sense the energy surrounding him like a warm and fuzzy blanket, gently soothing his nerves through direct mind-contact.
“I won’t come in, breathe in deeply, hold for 5 seconds and let go, can you do it for me? Good, and again…there you are, is that much better?”
The psyche-connection with Uki always felt surreal, but this allows them to read each other’s raw emotions and thoughts, and how Uki openly shows affection from deep-down inside always manages to lower Shu’s defences mechanism.
When the sparkles of green fire finally subsided and vanishes into thin air, Shu silently replies to Uki in his mind: “Thanks…sorry I overreacted, you can come in now if you want.”
Even with permission, Uki still knocks three times on the door before going in.
A purple-hair man with beautiful features and heterochromia eyes walks into Shu’s room, giving the room a quick glance upon entering, and immediately notice that the windows are left open again.
It is visible that Uki slightly grinded his teeth, but chooses not to comment on how Shu keeps leaving an exit in the room, instead he turns to scowl at the fragile man on bed: “How many times I need to tell you, don’t say you are ok when you are clearly not?”
Shu sheepishly shrinks a bit into the blanket: “Morning Uki, did I get in trouble?”
“It is almost noon,” Uki sighs while sitting beside the edges of his bed, mindful in keeping a safe distance: “Nightmares again?”
“I don’t know…” Shu’s eyes dazed off for a second, before turning back to Uki: “…it feels weird, like the trauma is still there, and it comes out to haunt you every now and then, but you don’t know why and what scares the hell out of you…”
“So, would you want me to help you restore everything?” Uki observes Shu intensely with full attention, not wanting to miss any small reactions, as he knows how much this person can endure pain and keeps it all to himself: “I know you are not a big fan of missing information that you think is crucial for survival.”
Shu contemplated on the proposal for a few seconds, but eventually dismisses it: “Nah, I trust my older self to know better, he must have a solid reason to make such an extreme request and decided that losing all past memories is best for survival, so he will probably be furious if we backpedal everything.”
“True, if it doesn’t sparks joy, then you should throw it away.” Uki lets out a small smile of relief.
“You don’t say.” Shu smiles weakly, not really knowing how to comment, since he doesn’t remember anything, and can only relied on Uki’s words.
Shu Hikarino doesn’t have any memories from the past, and that is by choice, his own choice.
And Uki is the psychic who had helped to remove all past memories of Shu—as per the request of his old-self.
He only remembers Uki Violeta and Fulgur Ovid since they were there from the first day he woke up, and also the only two people his old-self had trusted with great faith.
“But just so you know, the option is always open, all you need to do is ask.” Uki sighs to reiterate his point.
The reaffirmation makes Shu smiles comfortingly, knowing that someone always got his back and supportive of his every decision.
Even before removing all past memories, his old-self seems to know their personalities quite well and had every option available just in case he wants to know the truth—he has access to a cloud storage drive, where there are records and documents from his old-self, also Uki has a crystal ball that keeps all Shu Hikarino’s previous memories to help restore everything.
Shu did login to the storage drive once, but upon seeing the most depressed expression he could ever imagined appearing on his face, and hearing himself pleading in tears with the sentences “If you are watching this, that means you are considering about restoring past memories, but I am begging you not to do this…”, is enough to convince him not to revisit old wounds.
“I am good, sometimes ignorance is bliss,” Shu reaches out to lightly pat on the back of Uki’s hand: ”If it is anything alike the happy memories with you guys, I would do anything to protect and keep it safe.”
“That’s so sweet,” Uki laughs and gives Shu’s cheek a playful quick pinch: “Ok then babe, there are gyozas in the fridge, also natto and cooked white rice if you are in the mood, remember to heat your food before eating.”
“Oh yeah, you have places to go today, it is meeting with Sonny, right? Sorry for keeping you occupied!” Shu tries to get up from bed to see Uki out, but fails miserably as Uki pushes him back into the bed again.
”Just lie down and rest well, I am a big boi, I can see myself out.” Proceeding to give him a friendly tap on the forehead, Uki leaves the room with a big wave in the air, leaving only his back as the last thing Shu saw before the door is closed.
Hence Shu didn’t see how Uki switches to a cold grimacing expression the second he leaves the room.
The psychic pulls out his phone and sent a message into a group chat with the title ‘Noctyx’- “He is becoming more and more unstable, he slept for more than 20 hours without realizing it, and releases mana shield the moment he woke up, we need to act faster.”