Dusk. Darkness. Where am I?

The ground is slightly damp, and rough against my toes. I can feel it as my bare feet slam against it over and over, I propel myself forwards and I almost trip as I slide over some slippery moss, heart leaping into my chest as I quickly manage to right myself. Keep pushing forward. An almost unnoticeable slant of light is cast overhead tall, concrete buildings, illuminating in part the world around me. I see some metallic poles that spring from the concrete ground at regular intervals as I pass them, standing tall with their tops curved out slightly to form umbrella shapes above them. None of the lamps in the street are on.

I feel nauseous. I don’t know why I’m running, or whom I’m running from. All I know is that somewhere behind me there is danger. Danger, that sets my head reeling and my heart racing. I can make out a fence blocking my straight running line in the distance, so I try to increase my speed. When I reach the fence I jump, hissing as the ball of my foot hits barbed wire and my arm muscles strain to pull me over the top. I lurch forward, feel a lurch of wind as gravity presses me downwards, and topple against the concrete below. I lie for a second, stunned, before I slowly press the palms of my hands against the ground, hard, pushing myself up.

I trip, almost immediately. I can feel rocks digging into my feet, so I attempt to drag myself, hands and knees, as far away from the fence as possible. I know I’ve left my mark both on the fence and the floor, blood pooling around me as I struggle on. It’s too dark to make it out, but the dampness seeps into my clothes and skin, until I’m left shivering. I try tugging my shirt off, throwing it as far away from myself as possible. I spit on the floor, drag myself to the nearest wall, and press my body harshly against it, hoping the shadow it casts will shelter me from whatever has been chasing me this whole time.

“,” I curse under my breath.

Lights flash behind me. I turn back to the fence. Not quick enough. I can hear sirens cut through the air with their howl. I shiver, bringing my knees close to my face. I hide my face, black hair covering pale skin, as my eyes peer through the locks. I slow my breathing as much as possible against the racing of my heart. I see lights flicker on the other side of the fence; watch them come closer and closer. I arch further back, as far as possible away from the lights. Who are they? What are they? A black vehicle hurtles into my vision, the tires screeching to a halt as they reach the fence. I hiss, squinting as the front lights make everything white around me.

“Taka?”

I feel hands wrap around my shoulders and I whimper, visibly shaking under the person’s grasp. I look up, squinting, finding a soft, rounded face framed with long hair dip-dyed at the ends. I stare at the ground once again. I can’t recognise him. I shut my eyes tight, unmoving as he pulls me upwards, dragging me back towards the vehicle. I vaguely feel other hands pressing against my back; hear the click of a seatbelt by my waist. I let the chatter wash over me as I crumple myself up as small as possible in the back seat.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” the same voice that found me in the alley. “It’s like he didn’t recognise me at all… I’ve never seen him so off before.” I feel eyes on me.

“What do you think happened to him?” asks another.

“Hard to tell,” the first says.

--

I wake up in a small, white-walled room. I turn to the side, noticing a small cabinet that seems to be made of some cheap plywood. There’s a glass vase on the top, see through. In it, a mix of different types of leaves that I can’t identify and colourful flowers, including baby blue and light pink hydrangeas. I don’t understand why they’re there but they make me smile. I stare at them a little while longer, before taking in the rest of my surroundings. The first thing I notice is a framed CD, a poster on the wall just above it. There are four signatures around the border, all in silver pen on a black background. I shudder as the door squeaks open.

“You’re awake!”

The speaker steps into the room, the same soft round face with a bright smile. They sit on the end of the bed, and I feel their weight push my legs half a centimetre down. I try to smile back, but all I manage is a grimace. They run their hands up and down the sheets, looking at me expectantly. When it’s obvious I won’t say anything they sigh, wrap their fingers into the sheets, and tug slowly. They can’t look me in the eye, instead training their gaze to the tufts of carpet that line the floor.

“Do you remember anything, Taka? Anything at all?”

I squint at the name. The people sigh again, this time picking themselves up, sliding up the blankets to be slightly closer, and resting a hand on my tense shoulder.

“I’m Tomoya, remember? We’ve been very good friends for a very long time.”

I don’t remember Tomoya. The door squeaks once again, and two new figures walk into the room. One is tall, a mischievous smirk on his face, short and dyed blonde hair framing his chiseled jawline. His dark blue jeans are suspended on his waist by a tight, spiked belt, and a simple striped dress shirt. The other, has slightly longer hair, the tresses a mix of black and dirty blonde. He wears a plain shirt and shorts, and jumps on the end of the bed and sits cross legged. The person that calls himself Tomoya nods to the other two and taps me on the shoulder, gesturing to each.

“This is Toru and Ryota. You remember them, right?” There’s something familiar about the both of them, but there’s some kind of fog in my mind that I can’t seem to dispel, and the sense of familiarity starts to wane.

I shake my head. No.

The two new figures don’t look surprised. They give me a sad glance, before gesturing to Tomoya. The three leave the room, closing the door behind them. I slowly sit up, press my feet into the soft carpet, before stepping close to the door. I try the handle but it seems to be locked, so I simply press my ear to the wood and listen. I can hear muffled conversation on the other side, which I am barely able to make out. I squeeze my eyes shut, run my palm against the doorframe, and listen.

“The doctor said he had some type of amnesia,” a voice says. “They don’t think it’s lasting, but they can’t really figure out what could have caused it. There don’t seem to be any drugs in his system, and he doesn’t have any kind of physical injury that would account for it.”

“What about all those cuts and scratches on his chest, hands and feet?” Tomoya asks.

“That’s not enough to have caused it,” another voice says. “Whatever they did to him, they must have used a drug that doesn’t leave a trace, as weird as it sounds. Either that, or it has to be some kind of psychological trauma. Whatever they did to him was so bad he doesn’t want to remember, and forgetting who we are is a temporary side effect to that. He also doesn’t want to speak, the doctors said he hasn’t spoken at all to anyone. He hasn’t said a word to you has he?”

“No,” comes Tomoya’s voice.

A pause.

“What do we do with him?” the first voice asks.

“We can try and give him a stimulus, to make him remember,” the second voice suggests.

“I think we should do nothing, for now,” Tomoya says. “He’s tired, and he needs to rest. We can try find small things first, but we can’t pressure him about it. We’ll make him feel worse if all we do is become constant reminders that he can’t remember.”

Something shuffles closer to the other side of the door and I spring back to the bed, wrapping the blankets around my head. The door opens, there’s a sigh, and the heavy thud of a chair being drawn across the room. I feel soft hands against my forehead and I close my eyes, letting my breathing steady as the tears fall and stain the pillowcase. The darkness engulfs me as I drift into a restless slumber.

--

They tell me all of these different things about myself that I don’t even remember. They talk about an American pen pal that I should contact on Skype as soon as possible but I can’t bring myself to do it. The faces that I can’t identify have an eerie, unnerving feeling about them, and adding one more may just drive me insane. Toru and Ryota are overbearing at times, but other times they just want to get away from me.

Tomoya just sits and watches. He brings me tea; he plays board games with me. Sometimes we leave the confines of the room and walk to a playground down the road from the hospital, and he just lets me sit on the swing, and he sits on one too. And we just sit there, together, in silence. I like the silence.

“You know, we all have this tattoo,” Tomoya tells me one day, pointing to three marks on my left arm.  “Well, besides Toru that is. But get this, each symbol represents the first letter of the name for each member of the band. T, T, R, for you. One for Toru, Ryota, and me. And look at this,” he points to his left wrist. “T, T, R, for me too. Toru, Ryota, and Taka – that’s you, of course.”

I nod, running my fingers over the black ink. There’s something nostalgic about it, as I press my index finger against my arm, tracing the letters that are more like arrows than actual letters. My skin tingles and I think my body can remember it, remember when the needle pierced the skin and the sharp and momentary pain, remember the weeks of scabbing and how new layers of skin slowly rose up to reveal the final design, the colours trapped just under the surface. It frustrates me that something that is literally a part of me I cannot even call back to my mind.

“We're going out, did you want to come?” Tomoya asks. I shrug, still staring at the tattoo on my arm.

“It’ll be good for you to get out of this room,” Tomoya presses, nudging me. My eyes meet his and I sigh, throwing him a silent nod.

Tomoya grins, drawing me to the doorway, watching me slip some sandals on my feet and following me closely down the hallway. He seems to always have a protective hand pressed to my shoulder, like he’s making sure I won’t disappear. When I’m alone, in that room, sometimes I think they’re just keeping their distance because I’m a mental patient, because they don’t want to deal with me and my lack of memories. Other times, when Tomoya steers me towards wherever they want to go, I conclude that maybe they’re just keeping their distance because they’re not sure how to act around someone with the face of a close friend that abruptly vanished, because seeing me hurts them too.

I run my fingers over my constricted throat, up and down, angrily. I want to ask where we’re going, why we’re going there, but I can’t find the words. I let out a resigned sigh and I pull the black door open. I find my seat in the middle as Tomoya slides in against me and clicks on his seatbelt. Ryota sits in the front seat, his hands clutching the wheel as he pulls out of the driveway. He eyes the road intently as he weaves in and out of traffic, passing building after building that are still unfamiliar to me. I feel nauseated watching the road, so I glance across at Toru, waiting for an answer to my unspoken question, some kind of explanation for why they dragged me out.

“We’re just going to a place you might remember,” Toru says.

--

We pull up outside a large building, larger than any building we’ve passed along the way. It’s rounded, at least from the outside, with large white panels lining the sides. Toru and Ryota head off towards the entrance, shoes clacking against the concrete pavement. It’s worn-down and grey, and covered with little circles of old, chewed-up gum. Used cigarettes sit in the gutters where the wind must have blown them. Tomoya stands next to me and taps me lightly on the shoulder.

“You remember this place, right?” Tomoya asks. I simply shrug and walk after the others.

Tomoya’s right. There’s something oddly familiar about it, but I just don’t know what. We walk down several corridors and up some stairs, the staff waving us through and giving me nods of understanding. The walls are covered in sports stars, some I know the names of but can’t remember why and others as unrecognizable as the people we pass on the street. There are some green plastic plants lining the walls in an attempt to make the place livelier. After walking for what seems like half an hour, we finally come to an exit. I squint and hold a hand up to my face as we walk into the sunlight.

We walk onto grass, and I immediately notice red and white colour flecked through the green, though the colours have faded from overuse. Tomoya takes my hand and leads me into the centre of the field, with Toru and Ryota trailing behind with hopeful smiles. I cast a glance upwards, slowly twirling as I see all the seats on top of one another, a complete circle around the field. I notice large columns just above them high in the air, the sun reflecting off panels of floodlights. I look back down at the ground, wondering why all of this is so familiar.

“Stand over here,” Tomoya says. He drags me along behind him, finding a space amongst the red painted grass. He sits, petting a spot next to him, and points around.

“See all this grass, they can remove it, put in chairs,” he says. “The chairs go all the way up around, 360 degrees, and people buy tickets to sit in them. Some places they don’t put chairs but people don’t mind standing, they like to be close to the action.”

I remember.

I remember the racing of my heart, the throbbing sea of people converging around a tiny platform in the middle of the ground. Strobe lights circling above us and flashing bright colours onto the stage, pyrotechnics going off and sending shots of light across the darkness out in front of us. I hear the screams of people in the crowd as they jumped up and down in excitement, some connecting their fingers together and dancing around in circles, others making symbols with their hands, throwing them up to the heavens like an offering. 

Toru and Ryota jump around on either side of me, drawing off the electricity that seems to fill the air, their guitars slung over their shoulders loosely, their fingers hammering away at the strings. Ryota, topless as usual, smirks at some of the girls in the mosh pit down below. He gets a wolf-whistle and throws me a raised eyebrow, challenging me to do better with the ladies. I shrug it off, turning to Toru. Toru smiles cheekily as he tilts his head away from me, directing his attention away from the crowd.

I follow his gaze, blinded momentarily by the lights as they reflect off the metallic edges of the drum kit behind me. Tomoya sits behind it, giving me his trademark lop-sided grin as he smashes his sticks into the snare and tom-toms, his foot pounding against the pedal that connects with his bass drum, his whole body shaking with movement. I can see beads of sweat dripping down his face and body, dampening his shirt, colouring it darker. Tomoya, however, shows no sign of being at all uncomfortable, launching himself into the start of another song, one that I know.

I turn back to the front, eyes widening in revelation. My fingers curl around the microphone and I throw my arm out, jumping up onto a small platform on the stage. I remember the words, the lyrics to the songs we wrote together, and they flow from my lips, my voice finally free from its constraints. I let out a cry of excitement, throwing myself towards the crowd.

I remember.

--

“Where are we?” I finally ask, voice hoarse. These are the first words to leave my mouth since they found me.

“Yokohama Stadium,” he responds, his voice gentle. If he was surprised by my finally speaking he does his best not to show it. Toru and Ryota, on the other hand, raise their eyebrows and start walking towards us.

“People play sports here, but every now and then the stadium can be changed and concerts can be held. Concerts like the one we held here a couple of months ago. Tell me, Taka, do you remember any of that?”

“I think I do,” I reply quietly.

I suddenly feel exhausted, my head throbbing. I press my hand to my temple, lying down and stretching out on the grass, before letting out a groan of discomfort. The sun is too bright, even with my eyes now tightly shut. I curl myself into a ball, drawing my legs under my chest as I try and hide away. I feel hands wrap around my shoulders, and I let out a loud sob.

“It’s ok,” he tells me, rubbing my shoulders affectionately.

“How can you say that, when I forgot about you? When I forgot about us?” I choke. “How could you ever forgive me?”

“You didn’t forget,” he reassures me. “We were in your head all along.”

Tomoya smiles, lifting me up into a sitting position. I wipe my eyes, and through my tear-blurred vision I can make out that the other two have reached us, and they kneel beside me, taking one of my hands each. They smile too, pulling me into bear hugs, throwing Tomoya a knowing glance, and then they leave, pressing their lips to my tear stained cheeks.

Tomoya and I sit for a little while longer, watching as the sun starts to set behind the stadium, casting a red glow over the heavens. He doesn’t let go of me, keeping his arms wrapped around my middle as I watch the sky change colour.

“How did you know to bring me here?” I finally ask, calm and collected. He presses his lips to my neck and I feel the vibrations shoot down my spine as he chuckles.

“That’s because I love you.”