I have a life simulator.

You hear yourself say this, and although you have lost your memory, your keen senses still allow you to find three notes hidden in the crevices of your robe pocket.

The first card reads: "If you have any questions, please call the phone number of psychologist Arisu Sakayanagi," followed by a list of contact details.

The second card reads "Meow meow meow meow," a phrase with no clear meaning. You're unsure if it's some kind of strange code. The signature is "Ying."

The third image: "Don't believe what Ichinose Honami says, everything—Kitagawa Ryo."

After confirming that Ichinose Honami, the woman who claimed to be your wife, had left home, you called your psychiatrist, Sakayanagi Arisu.

"Kitagawa Ryo, is that Mr. Kitagawa?"

Sakayanagi Arisu, who called herself a psychologist, chuckled softly.

"You called me just yesterday, I didn't expect it to be you again today."

"I don't remember."

You can't find a single trace of yesterday in your memory, so you cautiously probe:

What did I say to you yesterday?

"Hmm, I came to take a look. I happened to have kept yesterday's recording. Would you like to listen to it?"

"Well, that's troublesome."

"After all, you are also my patient. It would be best if you could regain your memory as soon as possible."

The recording she plays for you next is short, consisting mainly of white noise aside from your conversation with her. You notice that yesterday you would fall into a long silence every time you heard her say a word, but today you naturally accept the words "White Room" and "Matsuo Eiichiro," and memories of them gradually resurface in your mind.

"Yes, that means your condition is improving. Congratulations."

Sakayanagi Arisu seemed pleased with your situation, and her usually calm voice now sounded slightly amused.

Did I really jump off the windowsill yesterday?

At the end of the recording, you hear the other person tell you to "jump off the windowsill."

"...If you had actually jumped off the windowsill, I don't think you would still be here here obediently talking to me."

"That's right."

You glanced down through the window on the wall. Your floor was at least six or seven stories high. If you had actually jumped from here yesterday…

You touched your arms and legs; these parts are still intact and attached to your body.

"Is there anything else?"

It seemed that Arisu Sakayanagi on the other end of the line had received another call; perhaps this is just how busy a psychologist's daily life is.

I'll call you back when I think of it.

You glanced at the clock on the wall; it was only nine in the morning. You thought you should continue searching the house to see if there was anything that could trigger your memories.

You first looked through the photo album that Honami Ichinose had given you before she left, which contained some photos from your childhood.

This is probably a photo taken by your parents. The reason for this thought is that there must be some words written on your individual photos. Like "Ryo is studying hard", "Ryo is playing soccer", "Ryo loves sweets" and other small words written in neat handwriting.

Unlike the handwriting you saw in the wedding photo by Honami Ichinose, this neat and small handwriting is much more mature, and you vaguely believe that it is your mother's handwriting.

Everyone has a childhood, and even if you have lost your memory, you can still flip through this photo album and imagine this period of your life.

Your gaze quickly settled on one of the photos.

Happy 10th birthday, Ryo!

This photo appears to have been taken at a birthday party. Where was it? The photo doesn't look like it was taken at home; it seems more like it was taken at a camping trip in the wilderness. You can even see a car parked nearby. In the photo, you're smiling happily in front of a large cake with ten candles. Perhaps you were halfway through eating it, as your cheeks are smeared with cream, and your bright eyes are wide open, startled by the sudden timed camera shots. Beside you, a man and a woman are smiling and surrounding you.

You continue flipping through the pages, quickly reaching the last one: a photo of you at sixteen with Honami Ichinose. You reach out and pin a hair clip to her hair in front of the camera. Honami's smile in front of the camera is so radiant—that you suddenly feel a wave of dizziness.

"what……?"

You couldn't help but mutter to yourself.

It's a sense of incongruity that even you find abrupt; you feel like you've discovered something that shouldn't exist, something that shouldn't exist.

But at the same time--

There's also a feeling of finally finding something important that's been lost.

You hurriedly flipped back the pages, flipping and flipping, flipping and flipping.

Avoiding it, constantly retracing its path.

But—no.

There was no "that" anywhere.

There is nothing in it that should absolutely exist.

"Yes, when you were sixteen, you went out with your uncle and aunt and got into a car accident. Although you survived, you lost your memory."

You recall Ichinose Honami's words.

Upon closer examination, other questions arise.

Yes, there are many more.

You placed the three slips of paper back in front of you.

The first card reads: "If you have any questions, please call the phone number of psychologist Arisu Sakayanagi," followed by a list of contact details.

This is the only one of the three notes without a signature, but the information on it is real. This contact information did indeed allow you to contact the psychologist Arisu Sakayanagi, and from her, you obtained information related to your memory. Moreover, this is the only note that uses machine-printed font, similar to a business card.

The second image contains the phrase "meow meow meow meow," which is completely meaningless and is signed "Ying."

Is this... a cat?

As you watch this series of meows, a white kitten is already forming in your mind.

Why white?

You shook your head, but the cat in your memory became clearer and clearer. Every single hair on its body was clearly visible, as white as the first snow, and it blinked its fluorescent eyes at you.

萤！

It was as if you suddenly remembered it, and then, as if you had opened a floodgate of memories, all your memories of this cat rushed into your mind.

You pet your cat at home... You find it on a rainy day... You see it being bullied by someone near the doghouse in the village and take it home.

Why three memories?

You rubbed your head and sat down on the sofa in the living room. You read the second note over and over again, but that strange feeling never returned. At least you remembered your pet cat.

The third image: "Don't believe what Ichinose Honami says, everything—Kitagawa Ryo."

After racking your brains for a long time without any clues, you turned your attention to the third note, the one that had shocked you the most when you saw it that morning.

Honami Ichinose is the woman who gently took care of you on the morning you lost your memory. She claimed to be your wife. You remember her saying in the morning that today was your third wedding anniversary and your tenth dating anniversary. She would go home early in the evening, around 5:30.

You get up and walk into the room where you woke up. You open the wardrobe first, and what you see is all kinds of women's underwear, which makes you feel a little ashamed. But you take them down one by one and put them aside. You reach deeper and feel your fingers. You feel a hard texture. You take that thing out.

It was a whiteboard that seemed to have been unused for a long time. Tutors often used it, and I heard that some families would also buy a small one to hang at home and write down the things to do each day to remind the whole family.

The whiteboard had a dirty gray color, with many words hastily scribbled on it, then wiped clean and replaced with new words, revised again and again, each time leaving some faint marks.

You're curious. If time could be reversed, and every mark on the whiteboard could be reproduced layer by layer, what could you discover by delving into your past? But you know that even if it were possible, it would be futile, because looking through the few remaining marks, there's only:

"Remember to take your medicine today."

Simple, almost uninformative statements like, "Don't open the door to strangers."

You moved this whiteboard to the living room and compared the handwriting on it with the other two notes besides the first one; they were not the same.

This whiteboard was probably used by 'Ichinose Honami' to remind 'you' who had amnesia, so 'Ichinose Honami' in the house is not the owner who left these two notes for you.

But you felt a sense of familiarity with the handwriting on the whiteboard. You thought of the love letter that Ichinose Honami showed you that morning, which was supposedly the one you wrote to her.

You quickly retrieved the love letter, framed in glass, from the living room cabinet.

When you put the two together, you discover a fact:

The handwriting on these two items is exactly the same.

You feel yourself sinking into a vague sense of confusion.

You first confirmed that the Ichinose Honami you saw when you woke up in the morning was lying, and there was more than one of them.

First, according to her, she lost her parents in a car accident when she was sixteen. However, in the photo album she took before she was sixteen, there were no photos of her with her parents after she was ten. Moreover, the small print next to each photo that recorded her growth was also missing. If she had lost her parents in a car accident when she was sixteen, this situation would not have occurred.

Second, according to her, she wrote this love letter to herself when she was thirteen years old. However, the handwriting in this love letter is the same as the handwriting on the whiteboard you just found at home. If it was written by Ichinose Honami on the whiteboard, then what is this? Writing a love letter to herself?

You stroke your chin and turn your gaze to the third note; the two findings seem to confirm its credibility.

"Don't believe anything Ichinose Honami says. — Kitagawa Ryo."

Kitagawa Ryo is someone Ichinose Honami once said, "Your name, if you look at it superficially, is a clue that your past self left for your present self."

but.

You took out a pen from the study and wrote your name five times on a piece of paper.

They don't seem to be from the same person as the name on the note.

You try closing your eyes, or deliberately writing in a messy way, but no matter how you try, you can't write the three characters "Kitagawa Ryo" that look like the note.

As you pace through the living room, deep in thought, you unexpectedly discover something else with "Kitagawa Ryo" written on it that is almost identical to the one on the note.

"Yeah……"

Various clues converged in my mind, like different parts being precisely embedded into the main body, making a clicking sound, and then meshing tightly together in a unique form that could not be any other.

Many small fragments eventually converged towards the center, leading to a vague answer.

There is still one last step left.

Now that you've made this judgment, all you need to do is wait.

At 5:25 p.m., you dialed Sakayanagi Arisu's number again.

"Hello, this is psychologist Arisu Sakayanagi."

"Yes, I am Kitagawa Ryo."

"What have you remembered now?"

She yawned lazily, seemingly noticing that it was getting late:

"I'm about to get off work."

Is it 5:30?

"Huh? How did you know?"

Sakayanagi Arisu asked with some confusion, as if she had realized something:

"you……"

"Well, I see."

"is it?"

Her voice sounded somewhat forlorn, but quickly returned to normal:

"Congratulations, my patient number one, you can now say goodbye to me as your psychologist."

"See you."

You hung up the phone, and almost the instant you put the receiver down, Honami Ichinose opened the door.

She looked at you with some horror, who had already leaned halfway out of the window, and almost instinctively screamed:

"It's cold! Get down here right now!"

The wind outside the window rustled your hair, and without hesitation, you stuck your other leg out the window as well, then let go of your hands that were supporting your body:

"Goodbye!"

As you plummet through the air, you shout your last words to the woman running towards you, but she cannot catch you as you fall.

"Sail waves..."

"No, it should be Miss Sakayanagi Arisu."

-------------------------------------

You feel yourself fall onto a furry back, and you reach out to touch the head of the giant beast.

"The dream is about to end."