A/N: This chap is dedicated to Chrysanthia-Sunshine. ^^ Sorry for the tardiness, and thank you for your patience. XD

Review

"Ah, Shibuya-san, I have a very important matter to discuss," the old man said solemnly. He gazed at Mai, who stared back innocently. "As you probably noticed by now, I'm very sorry to say that Taniyama-san has a rare case of amnesia."

"What do you mean?" I queried, narrowing my eyes, but I was inwardly very astonished for the very first time.

"She has both anterograde and retrograde amnesia," the doctor replied forlornly. "I'm sad to say that she would never get her memories back or even create new ones."

End of Review

XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXD~nya~

Earlier that day, the priestess barged in my office. Her eyes were uncharacteristically puffy.

"What is it?" I frowned. I was quite sure I'd locked my territory.

She didn't reply but just shrugged. Then, digging her hand in her orange snakeskin bag, she fished out some plastic and extended her hand to me.

Nonchalantly, I raised an eyebrow without looking at what she's handing over. "What is that for?"

Grimly, she grunted, "It was left behind on the bridge."

I knitted my brow. Why would she give me something like this? To see if I'll show annoying feelings?

I narrowed my eyes. "I have no need for━"

"It's a part of Mai's birthday gift to you!" Her lips quivered, and she seemed more inclined to sob than to shout...

Realizing, I stared at her. Birthday gift? For me...?

Without asking, she explained the content in the Ziploc bag she was grasping.

"She baked a cake for you! She's been practicing for weeks! She was going to give it to you, yet she wasn't able to! The cake she worked hard for was destroyed and washed away with the rain on the bridge! These box and ribbons were the only things presentable!"

With a glare, she slammed it down on my desk and left. Sighing, I leaned back on my obsidian swiveling chair.

I closed my eyes and pondered, So that's what it was...That was why she kept on asking if I don't mind sweet stuff...

I wouldn't be surprised if the cake was the reason she got into an accident...

However, I oddly hoped it wasn't the case, but her idiocy could be quite predictable...

I ran a hand through my hair. Why does she care so much even about such occasions? Just like Gene...

I loured and glanced at the priestess's parcel.

Idiot...why do you have to care so much? I'd told you very well not to. I don't need that kind of annoying sentiment.

I soughed.

Still, she wouldn't be Mai if she stopped her persistence.

I was bewildered, yes. Though, I did not bother for exaggerations such as jaw dropping, eyes bulging, and knees falling.

He turned to her. "Taniyama-san?"

She peered at him. "Doctor...can I go home now? What day is it? I have to go to my job and then to school."

The old man hesitated and feigned a smile. "Ah...I'll just need you to answer a few questions before I can let you go. Taniyama-san, how old are you?"

She blinked and mused, "I'm fifteen."

I ogled at her as the doctor scribbled on his clipboard.

"I see. Taniyama-san, what is my name?"

She knitted her eyebrows and smiled angelically. "Have you forgotten your name, doctor?"

The man scratched his head with a smile himself. "Haha! You can say that, Taniyama-san."

She shook her head and was apologetic. "Sorry. I can't help you. I don't know what your name is."

He scribbled on his clipboard again before saying, "Very well, Taniyama-san, please wait here. You will be told when you will be discharged later."

She nodded obediently and glimpsed at me. "Umm...are you lost?"

"No..."

She squinted her eyes, and I had expected for her to laugh and admit it was all a joke and that the doctor himself was just cooperating with her farce. But nothing happened except that she shrugged and examined the sky outside the window again.

"Shibuya-san," the doctor ushered, "let's go to my office to discuss."

I jounced my head and followed him, and I observed that, unlike before, Mai's eyes didn't follow me anymore.

XDXDXDXDXDXD~nya~

His territory was a well-lit whitewashed room. He sat on a brown leather chair and offered me a seat before his desk. Shrugging, I told him I preferred to stand.

The nameplate on his desk's surface read: Kyousuke Iwasaki.

Without further ado, the man began, "Thirty minutes."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Thirty minutes?"

"That's how long she can retain new information."

I was quiet, but it all seemed surreal to me.

"The nurses and I had been visiting her today at intervals to get this specific datum. It seems like she's stuck in her fifteen-year-old self."

"I understand the situation," I slowly spoke.

There was quiescence for a moment.

"For historical background, though," the doctor carried on while writing something on his clipboard again and then looking at me formally, "how long have you known Taniyama-san, Shibuya-san?"

"Two years and five months."

"Almost three years…" The doctor wrote on the clipboard and glimpsed at me again. "She is eighteen; is that correct?"

"Yes," I replied tersely.

"Although it is still inconclusive," the doctor speculated, "for now, we know that Taniyama-san could not remember anything from three years prior to this day."

"This condition is permanent?"

The doctor bobbed desolately. "The damages in her brain were severe although she may not look like it."

"I see…" An endless loop.

"Are you her boyfriend?" the man queried.

"You could say that," I supplied readily to halt further relationship questions, and he just sighed at me. I knew pity when I saw one. "What parts of her brain took the damage?"

He hesitated, so I added, "I have studied the brain, so you do not have to hold back."

Blinking, he nodded.

"Her basal forebrain and hippocampus were harmed," the doctor elucidated and gave me her MRI results. "Cholinergic innervation was disrupted."

That's why it caused global amnesia...

I kept my silence and scrutinized the black-gray-white image of her convoluted matter.

"It is a good thing that she's alive," the doctor tried to be positive, "yet it is painful and tragic that, at her young age, she is trapped in oblivion forever."

"When will she be discharged?" He's quite empathic for a doctor.

"After a few more days. We'll be doing other tests on her, so..."

"I see."

I just inclined my head at him as I excused myself and strode off.

"Ne, Naru," Mai called while sitting on the left side of my mahogany desk.

Sitting on my office chair across her and reading a new Parapsychology material Madoka had just sent to me, I raised an eyebrow.

"Your birthday is on September 19, right?" she asked, and I just continued arching my brow. "Well…shall I tell you what day it is?"

I narrowed my eyes at her, and she just eyed me with the usual jubilant smile, which makes her look like a child who wants to share a new discovery.

I sighed. It won't hurt anyway…

"What day is it then?" I pinched the bridge of my nose and placed the thesis down on my lap. She'd always been a random person when it comes to striking conversations inside my office.

"It's a holiday."

I frowned and asked what she'd been wanting me to ask. "What holiday?"

"It's Narcissism Awareness Day~~"

I squinted my eyes at her. "You just made that up."

"Nooope."

I soughed. "What are you on about?"

"Are you free that day?" Her cheeks reddened, and she avoided my eyes. "Let's go somewhere and celebrate it."

"Being aware of the day's occasion isn't enough?"

She pouted. "Stop with the wordplay! Honestly!"

I shrugged and smirked. "Where do you want to go then?"

Her cheeks turned a darker shade. "I-I don't know! You decide!"

She hmph-ed, and I rolled my eyes. She didn't have to be so roundabout just to ask me for a date, but her shyness was always random too.

"Did you just roll your eyes to me?" She gaped at me in disbelief.

"No. That was eye exercise."

"Tsk. Liar."

Lifting a corner of my mouth, I informed, "I'll call you when and where we'll meet that day then."

Still blushing, she good-naturedly nodded and alternately swung her legs up and down and then halted━probably noticing that she's wearing a skirt and that I'm in front of her.

"Y-you didn't look, right?"

I leered. "Didn't look where?"

"Nothing!" Crimson-cheeked, she deflected her head.

Amused, I poised my reading material before me and pretended to read again.

I guess I should take her to that amusement park she'd been staring at in some magazine before...

She wasn't sitting on the window ledge anymore. Instead, she sat on the edge of her ivory hospital bed near the window. Without waiting for her to notice me, I sat beside her.

She flinched and goggled at me, and I gazed obliquely at her.

"W-who━?"

"I'm Kazuya Shibuya, your boss," I intercepted.

She blinked. "Boss? You're not my bo━"

"You can't remember because of the accident, but you're not fifteen years old; you're already eighteen. We met a few months before you turned sixteen. You've been working under me ever since."

She wrinkled her brow. "H-how━?"

I leaned and osculated her. Her soft lips froze at the contact, so I didn't linger and pulled apart. If the accident didn't happen, she would have responded cooperatively and held me closer with her hands on my nape.

On the contrary, the current her paled at me, and I concluded that she most likely thought I stole her first kiss━add to that fact that I still appeared a stranger to her.

She'll forget it thirty minutes later...

I smirked. I can kiss her all day, but she won't remember at all tomorrow.

She was still dumbstruck as my smirk vanished, and I told her expressionlessly, "We started seeing each other a few months after your 18th birthday."

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her cheeks pinkened then.

What is this feeling? I was never an expert of identifying or eliciting emotions, so I couldn't explicate some sort of twitchiness in me.

Only you knew…what emotions…what sides of me exist…

I had no idea, so I just checked the presence of her memories in my brain━memories that, now, I alone could remember. Inevitably, the next days would consist of incessant reiteration, and nobody could do it better than me.

Troublesome? Annoying? Peculiarly, I didn't even think it would be such.

Involuntarily, I bowed my head, and I was perplexed at why I suddenly couldn't look at her.

But I soon understood.

I sighed and muttered, "I should have fetched you...rather than waited for you to come to me."

The accident wouldn't have occurred if I acted differently. If I had seen what would happen, I would have prevented it, but my psychometry didn't even warn me.

Pathetic. When did I depend on it? Why am I blaming━?

Inexplicably, that thought caused my body to go rigid and something wet to fall down my cheeks. Subsequently, I put a hand to my face, wiped off a droplet in voiceless query, and discovered that a tear had escaped from my eyes...

A hand reached out and cupped my left cheek, and I looked up at a puzzled Mai; it seemed like she didn't plan to touch me but just instinctively did. When she saw my face, concern flashed in her eyes, and it appeared as though she was familiar with me.

Like she cares for me...A stranger to her.

If her memories were intact, she would have known that was the first time I cried before her...before anyone...ever since I was born.

The warmth of her hand was like a trigger; tears spilled unstoppably in succession ever since. My expression must have stilled in shock, for her worried gander didn't disappear. Next, becoming erubescent, she motioned to jerk her hand away, but I held it to my face. The shock had worn off, and it was replaced with a deadpan countenance.

Reluctantly, she said awkwardly, "I-I'm sorry. I-I━"

"Just stay still like this."

"O-o-okay." She bit her lip, and I closed my eyes.

She'll forget I cried anyway.

At that instance, I finally became aware what feeling made something in me twinge.

XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXD~nya~

A/N: After writing this, I saw the new avatar I made and felt guilty. Mai's smiling face just made me feel so cruel for doing this to her. T_T