but when i try to get away to better myself it's "you were missing for two weeks!" and "we thought we'd never see you again!" and "the police declared you dead!" yeah i see how it is.

_

It's twelve-AM and you don't know your own name.

Sometimes, you wonder if you wanted to remember in the first place.

_

You wanted to live on a desolate planet when you were younger. You wanted to be alone, and you got to be alone, until you didn't. You were angry at the sun back then, at the way it hurt you, at the way it licked away at your skin, at the way it reminded you of fire. The way you can feel yourself ache at the very core at the idea, so you shut up and you shut down and you smile at Nedzu when he asks you if you want more tea.

You don't know why.

"Sure," you say, a dry smirk on your face. "got any ginger?"

"Of course," he says your name enthusiastically, rambling about how something goes with something and the benefits of one thing or another. "here you are."

"Thanks." You say and you smile and you don't mean any of it. You wonder if Nedzu knows he's a means to an end with you, just as you are to him. He probably does. He knows everything, you remember.

"For the tea," you lie. "thanks."

He smiles, chipper. "No problem!"

"Okay," you say, and the words sound muffled. "okay." Like your mouth is full of cotton. Like you aren't in control, like you don't know what to say and―you don't, is the truth. You don't know everything, you can barely keep yourself whole in memory and even that is slipping. It feels like you're always slipping, nowadays.

"And thanks," you say. "for everything else."

Nedzu hums like he didn't quite catch what you said, but you don't care to repeat yourself.

_

There's someone following you, you know. It makes your skin crawl.

You can barely remember your name very well, or your face, or the color of your eyes or―anything, really, but you know there's someone following you. You can hear the pitter-patter the rain can't cover up, the creaking of bones and the shutter of breath. Someone is following you.

You don't know why.

So you climb up the fire escape of the nearest apartment. You try and jump off―something catches you, which is a downside; counterpoint: it caught you but the throat. You can feel your neck snap swiftly, though you can't hear it. It's a smooth feeling; the way you reset; the way you're choking. You grin at this stranger, you've seen him in the hallway.

You crack your neck on the way up.

"Hero." You croon, rasped, he's a hero because of the look in his eyes. He's a hero because he tried to pull you back. "Gonna save me, are ya?"

"Yes." The stranger from the hallway says. He's not like the other one―though you can't imagine anyone there despite knowing you saw something, so you'll wonder what's made the black stain under his eyes like they do yours, instead―does he clean the mirrors the same way you do? you wonder. Until they show you what you want to see? you wonder. You wonder until your head hurts sometimes. Until you can't really think with the way it pounds and pulses awkwardly. With the way your eyes get dizzy in your mirrors.

Crack the glass and sweep it up. You've replaced your reflection so many times, the smell of bleach is like nostalgia in summer. Pinked up fingers sour like dish soap and nightmares.

"What's your name?" He says, and there's a fake kind of calm to his voice.

"I don't know." You say, and you don't. "I forgot." You say, and you did.

He looks like he's in awe of your stupidity. You wonder if he's met you; he must have, if you can remember seeing him from.. somewhere. A room, an alleyway, maybe. Somewhere crammed, but not crammed enough to remind you of, well.

(Your brain is losing focus, again.)

(Spilling pomegranate tea on white floors and all that jazz; color the walls with your parents wine. Did your parents drink wine? Huh, guess that's another thing you can't remember. You can't remember much, it seems.)

"You forgot?"

"I forget everything," you grin until your cheeks hurt. "it's great." Like something heavy is off your chest. Like you're free to be anything (you don't, of course, become anything despite all that's happened to you).

(You want to tell him that you're obsolete, that you're all forgotten promises and dry aged trauma.)

You want to know, now. When you can feel the memory of your own mouth slipping out of your hands. You want to know everything even if you know it's awful―even if you think it's awful. It must've been awful, you think, for you to be so happy about forgetting it.

Your brain is fuzzy where you forgot it.

"I'm.. going to take you into the station, you can file a report, we can get your family to pick you up."

"No you can't," you don't know why, something awful, something bright and flashy like a supernova against the inky space black of the sky. "nobody can get me. Not anymore."

"Okay, just―I'll figure something out, follow me."

He reminds you of someone, but you can't remember who. You want to know, you think, you want to forget, you know.

(Fire, you think, is a color of power, of courage. Red is a color of war. Something noble; something despicable. Sometimes so raging it swallows your soul in numb.)

Red is a color of war. Orange is the color of warmth. Fire is the starts of something awfully diluted; of something terribly complicated. Like that mess in your head. Like that mess in your head that will settle when you remember; that will fly when you don't because you're looking for a document except all the pages are blank. The sky is a dark blue. Red is the color of vengeance, orange is the color of warmth, blue is the color of distance. You are somewhere far away after all, right here in your own body.

The thing you control is like a desolate planet.

If blue is the color of distance, you think. The walls here are painted white here: then white is the color of ignorance. You're two timing this; you're giving meanings to things with none, naming everything but yourself because you know that fire means war, means tragedy even when you don't remember your own name.

You want to spill your guts all over the floor, like it's pomegranate tea and red wine.

(He had red eyes, though you can't remember who.)

_

You must've had a family, you think. A mother, possibly a father; maybe a sibling or two. Or maybe you were an only child. Maybe you weren't born at all. It's impossible, though, because then you wouldn't have known the two brothers with ignorance above their heads and life and war in their eyes.

Revenge and compassion, red snuffles out green, or maybe it was the other way round.

You don't remember, but it must have, even if it was a very long time ago. Long enough that you wouldn't really remember even when you stop forgetting. Long enough that you can't really forget it, even when you stop remembering everything.

It works like that in the long run, you know. The forest will always grow back after the fire.

_

There's a man in front of you, you think. He is tall, he is unapposing, he's wearing a fedora and it makes you kind of want to laugh. Though you can't remember why.

Your neck hurts, you can't remember why, either. The people around you are chit-chatting about one thing or another. You don't pay attention to them, there's a man in front of you and his eyes are brown and his coat is bright and his hat is beige and he's rather dull, you think. He's rather dull and he's rather brilliant about it.

He's making you think he isn't anything special, but you can see it in the way he walks, that air of tired confidence like the hero you've never seen before but you know. Someone from a hallway, you think.

"You don't know your name?" He says, dull and dumb and it's gone the moment you hear it.

"No."

Left eye twitches. You wonder, wonder what that means. "Yes." You say. Right eye twitches, nothing else moves on his face and you can't help but crave for an answer. You want to know; you want to know everything. You want to know nothing; you want to swallow the world whole just to know how it tastes.

"Do you know where you are?"

Hero is in the corner, all broody and shit. You smile wide at him. "Hero over there told me I'm at.. a station. Your an officer, I'd presume?" You can't really remember what Hero said, you can't remember if Hero gave you something to call him. You'll stick with Hero, it helps to simplify things. It helps, because you'll forget it all if you don't. Then you'll just hide yourself, you'll lock yourself in a place that only you know the exit of-you'll stop looking for answers that haven't been found yet. You're morality burns red and blue like a fire gone too hot.

Red is the color of war, blue is the color of distance. You've forgotten what your eyes look like, you've forgotten your name. White is the color of ignorance.

"Yes." Says Brown. You wonder what brown is then color of. Neutrality, maybe. Soil and neutrality. You'll figure it out. "This is the Musutafu Police Department. I'm Detective Tsucuachi Noamasa."

"Cool," you say. "now what? I haven't done anything illegal now, have I?"

"No, but you don't know where you live." He says it like he knows, and he's right, and you don't like it.

(There's an urge to let your face sour up. You squash it to dust.)

"Hn. I can just call.. " you've forgotten his name again. "my friend. He knows. Always does."

You think, at least. There was―something about him. All knowing, like omniscience; goldly, almost. Like he's all powerful and maybe, maybe he is. Brown nods, so you pull out your phone, it's old, it's new, it's vintage, but you know the way they buttons work. So you scroll until you see white. He's the only contact on your phone.

Nedzu, it says.

What a strange name.

You dial, one, two. A chipper voice picks up, it says a name you don't know, you can only assume it's yours.

"Nedzu," you say, testing the name on your tongue. "d'ya know where my home is from.. from.. "

"Musutafu Police Department?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

The voice just laughs. You snicker, because he sounds like he knows everything, and maybe he does! Maybe that's his meta-power-quirk.

"Oh," and he says your name fondly. "you've forgotten again."

"I think." You smile awkwardly, even when he― Nedzu can't see you. He might see it anyway. "Probably, yeah. Not very good at remembering, am I?"

"Not at all." Nedzu, Nedzu, Nedzu says what you can only imagine is your name. Your name in his mouth is familiar. Like he's said it so many times. It bleeds out into your brain.

"Which way is home?" You ask. "Why don't I remember?"

You don't know if you said that last bit. You don't know what he said, so you repeat yourself. "Which way is home?"

And he answers you. So you smile at Brown, at Hero and whoever else is watching.

"I'll be going now, Hero," you look at Brown's badge. "Detective." You bow, you can feel something laughing at your dramatics. It's that brother, white hair, red eyes and you two got along so well, cynical as you are. As he was. Because he is dead, and his brother is, too, and you are not. They're both gone.

You keep trying to put a bottom on this hourglass of yours.

It has no end. You've always hated the beach. The way the sand got between your toes.

Screaming children.

(Red red red.)
_

Home is a desolate place. It's empty, the walls are this bare color and it desperately needs to be redone, but you keep forgetting to do it.

You died, once; you've died so many, many times that it gets lost, but you think the first time you died it was suddenly. It happen so fast that you can't remember a second of it. You can still remember yourself, though. You were covered in blood and everything was―

Red is the color of war.

It was a day like this, maybe. The sky was so far away, so blue that it hurts to look at, it burned into your retinas. And you couldn't help thinking, blue is the color of distance. It was a long time ago, though. Everything was red and the sky was blue and it was before you met them.

You died once, you died twice. Times two over, hell is hotter when you haven't flirted with flames. Your mouth tastes like ash when you eat your dinner.

"What the fuck." You say. "Why is my life so shitty?"

You look at your hands and you laugh and laugh. They're red and blue. Red and blue. War and distance, violence and apathy. You're a god, but you're as mortal as they come, unable to die as you are.

(What are goals if they're always an option? What's the fucking point of a when instead of an if?)

You play dice with your own head and maybe one day you'll lose something more than your memories. Sanity is the next to go and you feel yourself slipping, down, down on a very slippery slope, the trick is to love every bitter, horrible moment of it.

(Ah, well. You're a tragedy waiting to happen, but at least it'll be a wild ride.)

You laugh until you cry. Kiss the stars goodnight as you fall, ever so proudly, into the abyss of self-reflection; a place where all the mirrors are cracked and you can't remember a damn thing. It's kind of like home, in that respect.

Your dinner grows cold all the while. You blink and you've lost time.

It's eleven-PM and the sink is getting dirty. You look at your reflection (when did you get to the mirror?) and you hate what you see so you bleach it down until your reflection is so distorted you don't recognize your own face.

(It's a shame.)

Your hair looks white with the mirror like this, so bleach-stained it's glowing. You look like that one boy, one you met a long, long time ago. You can't remember his name, but he looked like his brother.

The one with eyes that glowed green.

You can't remember his name; you can't remember yours either.

Your hair looks white in the mirror and it reminds you of something awful, so you cover it yo before you try and break it (again).

You're just old, you think.

The knuckles on your hands are slit and irritated. You've lost time, you've lost time and you wonder if you've ever done that before.

There's a want for knowledge; for knowing. Deep in your shallow, shallow soul you want to know everything, though you are sure some part of you is ecstatic to forget it all. Some part of you marvels at the way you can just repeat, repeat, repeat everything and it's all so new.

You want to become a star and you want to fall like one. To burn up so pretty and bright that it amazes everyone, that no kami can touch your brilliance―so that you become a supernova of spacedust and washed up dreams bleached against the sand of an hourglass.

Crack the clock on the floor and let the bits of glass get stuck between your toes like you're at the beach again.

Like the world is at war and you're just apathetic to it all. Fingers gone blue and cold. Distant, maybe. So you can be angry enough to remember because you can barely feel when you aren't dying.

You're so unapologetically, awfully, wonderfully you they it will burn the sky to hear your name.

Blue is the color of distance, after all. You'll love it anyway.

(As misfortune loves orphans and all that jazz.)

_

Your alarm glares at you in bright red. 4:09 AM stares at you with blocky tongues. You glare at it, too, because the numbers are going by to fast and you're losing time. It makes you afraid, and you don't care, but you're losing time as fast as it comes.

"Well well well," you grumble, mockingly. "do the mothers and fuckers of the jury find me guilty?"

(There's a laugh track audio ringing like wind chimes in your ears. Louder, louder. It's you, you realize, slowly. You're laughing. Like nothing else matters, everything is crashing, becoming nothing, becoming everything it wasn't.)

"Oh they do," you whisper, gleefully, flipping the blanket off and slipping your shirt off. "oh they do!"

You blink. Once. Twice.

You're sipping tea with a furry creature you can't name. He tells you to swallow two pills and you really don't have a reason not to trust him, so you do.

When you were younger, you wanted to live on a desolate planet, you muse. Maybe dreams do come true after all.

Be careful what you wish for, says the laugh track, you just might get it.

You wish the tablets he's put in your tea were poisoned in a way that would kill you. You know it isn't. You drink.