Kazusa Audition

Kurasame Susaya. That was the name engraved in stone before him. A name he once knew, but now rang hollow in his memories. Below it, a date, a period at which time this person had lived and breathed the fresh air and enjoyed the cool wind. Kazusa frowned slightly at the mental picture, and awkwardly handled the bouquet of flowers he’d brought to (apparently) his friend’s grave.
Ever since he and Emina had tried out his new device – his masterpiece – Kazusa had felt… odd. It was strange, seeing your own face in someone else’s memories but having no recollection of the events yourself. What was stranger was that he still didn’t feel like anything was missing, even after watching the images on his screen and realizing that something was missing. His memories… there didn’t seem to be any unusual gaps in them. He couldn’t recall early events in his life, but then, those tended to wane away as you grew older, so that was no reason for concern.
He could remember his time here in the Peristylium, his life as a student. He’d met Emina one day in class, and they’d hang out every once in a while, eventually growing to be good friends. They graduated, Kazusa got into weapon research while Emina went on to train as a soldier. He remembered being upset over that, but not voicing it. He didn’t like the idea of his friends putting themselves in hazardous situations, but then, it was their life. If that was what Emina wanted to do, Kazusa would just have to accept it and ensure she had top-of-the-line equipment. It was the best he could do to keep her save. The rest was up to her.

But this… Kurasame. He didn’t recall ever meeting him. Yet there he was, standing in the middle of that one picture with Emina and Kazusa happily smiling next to him. There were other, more recent pictures, that also showed them together. Sometimes all three of them, sometimes just him and Kazusa or Emina, and they carried the same smiles as they did in the school picture.
It seemed like they’d all been close, not just during their years as students, but after graduation as well. There were arms lazily tossed over shoulders, heads leaning together… Kazusa making a smoochy face at Kurasame, who did not seem amused… had he always been a weirdo? Probably yes. All of the pictures just looked so intimate, not inappropriate (aside from the smoochy face), but warm and sweet. These were pictures of people who had known each other for a long time, who basically considered each other family in some ways. Emina looked so happy too… Kurasame must have meant a great deal to her as well.

He knelt down in front of the grave and ran a nervous hand through his hair. Even if he couldn’t remember, he knew Kurasame had been his friend. A close friend at that. He’d worked long and hard to perfect his invention, there was no doubt about it, these were actual memories, not ones fabricated by the device. Somehow, that only made him feel worse.
What kind of friend was he that he couldn’t even recall the face or the name of the man he apparently cared for a great deal? How could he just… forget? As though none of it had meant anything to him at all? As though Kurasame had meant nothing to him at all. He knew it was the crystal’s work, they remove the dead from everyone’s memories in order to help them move on… which they had, he supposed. He and Emina were living their lives, feeling nothing was out of place or foreign. That was, until they had tried out Kazusa’s invention and came to realize that something was most definitely out of place.
Before this, Kazusa had always believed himself to be stronger than the crystal. He’d believed that, say Emina died, he would recall her perfectly. She was his friend, and he loved her dearly, no crystal could ever change that.

Except it could. Kazusa wasn’t strong enough to resist its mind-altering influence, and because of that, Kurasame was gone forever. Not even his memory lived on. Besides this grave, besides the pictures in his device, there was no evidence Kurasame had ever even existed at all. It made Kazusa feel disquiet and extremely lonely. How many other people had he forgotten? People he’d loved and cared for once? Was this the fate that awaited him as well? To be left behind by history the day he took his final breath? No… he was well known throughout the land for his research, his name would live on in history books. But that was it. Emina would forget him. Should she go first, he would forget her. All his other friends who would outlive him would go “Kazusa who?” when asked about him. He would walk by a swimsuit store and not even bother to check the windows because he wouldn’t remember his closest friend having a swimsuit fetish. Seeing them wouldn’t make his heart ache either, wouldn’t put him in a depressing mood because none of it would have any meaning to him anymore.

But… he didn’t want to forget. He wanted to remember his friends, his family. He wanted to remember Emina’s strange love for swimsuits even after her death. He wanted to remember Kurasame’s odd mannerisms, if he had them. In a way he understood the appeal of just erasing the dead from memory, it was so much easier that way. No one would feel a loss, no one would have to mourn.
It was easier, but was it better? Kazusa sure didn’t feel better as he sat here today. He felt like a horrible person for not remembering someone dear to him. He supposed the crystals hadn’t kept the fact in mind that one day, a person too curious for his own good would build a device that basically destroyed their work in a way.

“Kurasame…” he tried softly, having the false hope that saying the name might magically flip a switch in his brain and make all his memories come flooding back in with a force so great he would pass out and awaken as a new man.
They didn’t. All it did was place an unknown name to an unknown face. He shook his head in disappointment and placed the flowers beside the grave, looking at it with saddened eyes as he stood once more, leaning forward to brush some leaves and dirt that had collected on the stone away. That was what friends did, right? They looked out for each other, always. Even if he couldn’t remember, he vowed to himself that he would come here every once in a while to ensure his forgotten friend’s grave would look decent. He’d place flowers and talk about how the world had changed. Who knew, maybe Kurasame’s spirit lived on somewhere. Perhaps he could hear…
If there was even the slightest chance that Kurasame could hear him, he’d talk his ear off like he did with his other friends. Maybe, just maybe, coming here and talking to him would make him remember bits and pieces. Even if it wouldn’t, he couldn’t abandon him. Not now. Not after seeing those happy pictures of the past. Not after coming to terms with the fact that the two of them had been close friends once upon a time.

“Help me out here buddy,” He chuckled sadly, “Use your ghostly powers to punch me in the jaw or something,” his eyes cast downwards again, “Guess you know I’d try and invent some crappy machine to allow me to see ghosts if you did, huh? If only so I could punch you back. …Can you punch ghosts? Or do you just move right through them?” he placed his fist beneath his chin and gave a thoughtful look, “You know… I’ll bet I could make something like that. Yeah, ghost-vision goggles! Can you imagine how awesome that would be, Kura? These ghosts would just be floating about, doing their thing, and suddenly you’re like “Hi!” and they’re like, “Well I have never! This guy is looking right at me!” he chuckled joyfully now, mimicking a woman’s voice for his next line and… doing a little too good a job of it, “Oh sweet baby Pulse! He’s psychic!”
He laughed and joked and theorized for another ten or so minutes, feeling strangely comfortable sitting there and talking to Kurasame’s ‘ghost’, before he quieted down and collected his things.
“I guess… I have to go now. I’ll come back soon though, I promise.” He smiled sadly and touched the stone’s surface for a brief moment. “You… hang in there, wherever you are, alright? When we meet again someday, you’d better be smiling and happy to see me, not that frowny thing you do in most of those pictures. Don’t step on my one fragile little feeling.”
With a soft sigh, he turned and started his journey back home again. As he reached the gate, he peered over his shoulder and just stared at the gravestone for a second. “Goodbye, my friend.” He whispered before opening the gate and stepping out of the graveyard. He needed to find Emina. After all this, he really needed a hug.

Words: 1560

*holds Queen back*

2/2.