Tactical Embarrassment

Miyako's Perspective

This scene is familiar to me.

I've lived it before, but differently. Before, I had run to him. Full sprint, heart pounding, no hesitation—just pure desperate need to reach him before he could vanish again.

That time, it was eight days after I'd been isekai'd to this fucking world. Eight days since I last saw him on Earth, thinking that he had been left behind after seeing him slipping through the classroom door before it closed and locked itself. Eight endless days of wondering if I'd ever see him again, if he was still alive, if he was back home wondering what happened to all of us.

That time, we were busy making sure the delinquents couldn't catch up to us and hurt us with their sick "subjugation" powers. Scraping by on foraged berries and whatever the jungle provided, sleeping in shifts because we didn't know what dangers lurked in the darkness. All of us exhausted and terrified and unsure what the next hour would bring, let alone the next day. We were really fucking tired—physically, emotionally, in every way a person can break without actually shattering.

That day by the river, he'd popped out of the bushes like some goddamn forest bunny and shattered every wall I'd built just by existing again. One moment I was gathering berries, trying to focus on survival, and the next—there he was. Alive. Real. The one person I'd secretly hoped to see more than anyone else.

I dropped everything—my pride, my composure, the damn berries in my hands that scattered across the riverbank like drops of blood—and launched myself into his arms like I was afraid the world would vanish if I didn't. Wrapped my arms around him like I'd drown if I let go, my fingers gripping his school uniform so tightly my knuckles went white. I kissed him in front of everyone like it was the only way to breathe, not caring who saw or what they thought or how I'd have to explain it later.

"Do you know how scared I was? How important you are to me? Do you know how hard I prayed that I would see you again?" I cried into his chest like a child. Told him how scared I was. That I thought he was dead. I let every emotion I'd bottled up for years spill out at once, right there by the river with everyone watching. I didn't care. Nothing mattered except that he was alive, he was here, and I needed him to know what that meant to me.

I let my guard down. Let him in when I was vulnerable. Gave him everything that night in the bath. Every part of myself I swore I'd never give unless I was sure. My body, my trust, my heart—all of it his, willingly surrendered in the steam and heat of that moment.

I love him. I finally confessed that day, no matter whether it was the obvious one during the day that I had to half-heartedly pull back from when I realised we had an audience, or the private one I whispered against his skin in the bathing chamber. I'd said it, after years of pretending I didn't feel it. Years of waiting for him to notice me, to see past Miyuki and Mochi, to realise I'd been there all along.

I thought that I would not lose him again...

But I did.

And this time, I won't run.

This time, I will walk.

Step by measured step, every footfall heavier than the last. Every breath deliberate, controlled, because I've already used up all my spontaneous reactions. Because I had cried enough already. I have already run out of tears, my eyes burning and raw from two nights of sobbing into my pillow when no one could see, when I could finally let the mask slip. Screamed enough already, my voice still rough from calling his name into the forest until Hina and the others finally dragged me back to the sanctuary. I have already run out of voice, reduced to whispers and silence as hours turned to days with no sign of him.

I have waited and hoped and shattered in silence. Organised search parties with military precision during the day while falling apart at night. Kept everyone moving forward even as I felt myself sinking into quicksand.

This time there were no berries to drop. My hands are empty, clenched at my sides as I approach him in the clearing. No joy to propel me forward, only exhaustion and a strange, numb detachment that feels like the only thing keeping me upright. Only the weight of two days of not knowing if I'd ever get that chance again—the chance to see him, touch him, tell him that I'd meant every word I said before.

Two days of imagining his body lying somewhere in the forest, torn apart by wearolves or worse. Two days of wondering if the same hooded figure that had killed our classmates had taken him too. Two days of trying to convince myself we'd find him alive while preparing myself for the inevitable grief if we didn't.

And now this motherfuckering BAKA stood there like nothing had happened. Like he didn't just disappear with that hooded figure that was still hunting us. Like time hadn't bled me dry minute by agonising minute. Like he hadn't left me in a world where everyone I know was dying off one by one, where the boys were murdered one after another, where I kept thinking he was next and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

And when our eyes met, I saw the look across his face—too casual, too unaware. Just like he had fun elsewhere then decided to come back and take a look. Not like someone who'd been kidnapped or fighting for his life, but like someone who'd merely stepped out for a moment and lost track of time.

This motherfuckering BAKA.

This stupid, idiotic, infuriating, motherfucking baka.

I want to slap this motherfuckering BAKA SO HARD THAT HE GO BACK TO EARTH. Want to scream at him until my vocal cords shred, until he understands what these two days have cost me, what I've sacrificed, what I've lost that I can never get back.

I raised my hand—but instead—I hit him in the chest with my fist. Not a slap, not a full punch, but a closed fist against his sternum. Then again. And again. And again. Not to hurt. Just to feel that my baka is there. Real. Solid. Back. Each impact sending tiny shockwaves up my arm, reminding me that he's not a mirage, not a dream I'll wake up from. Each impact sends confirmation through my knuckles: he exists, he's here, he's not a dream or a hallucination or another goddamn memory I'll have to bury.

I look at him, eyes dry beyond reason. Beyond the capacity for more tears, beyond the ability to break down again. They've burned themselves empty.

"Do you even remember what you said to me?" I whispered, my voice barely audible. "Back at the bath?"

He blinked. Nodded slowly, those dark eyes full of confusion and something else—guilt, maybe. Recognition of what he'd put us through. "Of course I do."

"Then how could you leave like that? Without a word. Without a sign. Just gone." Each word felt like glass in my throat, sharp and dangerous. My voice cracked on "gone," betraying the emotion I was trying so hard to contain.

I felt myself shaking again, tiny tremors working their way from my core to my fingertips, but I wouldn't break. Not this time. Not when I needed him to understand what he'd done. I am Miyako Yukihana. I don't break twice for the same reason.

"That day, I ran to you. Today..." I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat making it difficult to continue. "Today I almost ran from your grave."

He didn't say anything. Just stood there like a stupid dummy, wrecked and lost, like he'd forgotten how to be my hero. Like the words had drained out of him along with the colour in his face. Just looked at me like he didn't know how to fix any of it, how to mend what his absence had broken. His hand reached for mine, then stopped halfway, uncertain.

Neither did I. I stepped back, creating distance between us, trying to sort through the cyclone of emotions inside me. My heart doesn't know what to do. Whether to cry again, scream again, laugh again or run away. Every possibility seemed both right and wrong, both necessary and impossible.

So, I did the only thing I could and wanted to do.

I stepped forward again, closing the gap I'd just created, and pulled him into a tight bear hug anyway. My arms locked around his waist, my face buried against his chest, inhaling his scent like it was oxygen after nearly drowning. Just holding him, affirming that he was real, that he was here, that I hadn't lost him after all. My arms wrapped around his middle, squeezing hard enough that I can feel his heartbeat through his ribcage. The rhythm of it against my cheek says: alive, alive, alive.

Because even if I hated him for disappearing, I loved him more for coming back. Back to us. Back to our sanctuary, our makeshift home, our little community of survivors trying desperately to hold onto something normal in this fucked-up fantasy world.

But most importantly, even if it sounds selfish...

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Back to ME.

Back to the girl who'd waited for him through middle school and high school, who'd disguised her feelings behind teasing and gaming sessions. Back to the girl who'd finally found the courage to tell him how she felt, only to have him vanish before she could be sure he understood. Back to the girl who'd cried herself to sleep for two nights, clutching her stomach with a desperate, illogical hope that something of him remained there, growing, a connection that couldn't be severed even if he never returned.

"Don't you ever," I whispered fiercely against his chest, "ever do that again. Or I swear to all twelve divine arseholes I will kill you myself and save everyone the trouble."

I felt his arms slowly, hesitantly wrap around me, like he wasn't sure if he had the right. Like he was afraid I might break or lash out again. For a moment, we just stood there, holding each other in the clearing, the world narrowed to just us, just this moment, just this reconnection.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into my hair, his voice rough with emotion. "I didn't want to leave. I was taken."

I just held him tighter, not ready for explanations or excuses. Those could come later. Right now, all that mattered was that he was here. He came back.

He came back to me.

Miyuki's Perspective

He has returned. Everyone has run out of the sanctuary like he scored the final goal to win the World Cup, abandoning half-prepared meals and crafting projects, dropping everything to witness the miracle themselves. Shouts and cries echo through the clearing, a dissonant symphony of relief and disbelief. Hina is crying openly, covering her mouth with both hands. Kurenai and Yuna are clutching each other, their faces a mirror of shock. Even Amakata-sensei looks momentarily unsteady, her teacher's composure briefly forgotten.

I stood a little apart from the others, just as I had during the burial. Slightly removed, watching, analysing, processing. Not quite part of the emotional chaos unfolding before me, but not completely separate from it either. In that liminal space where I could observe and support without being overtaken. When we laid empty markers for Daiki, Kaito, and Shota in that forest clearing days ago, I remained slightly separated, observing, remembering, capturing each moment with my Mnemonic abilities so that nothing would be lost. Some things should be preserved, even the painful ones.

I had held the line for two days.

Back then, when we found the bodies of Daiki, Kaito, and Shota, I'd been the one to help everyone process what happened. And after Andie disappeared, I did the same. I calmed the terrified, my hands steady on trembling shoulders, my Mnemonic abilities gently reshaping their worst fears into something manageable. I guided the broken through the stages of grief, helping them reach acceptance without bypassing the necessary pain.

I helped Miyako breathe when the sobs came too fast to manage, sitting beside her bed at night, monitoring her emotional patterns, ensuring she didn't spiral too deeply into despair. I was at the frontlines, helping them organise grief they couldn't name, the formless terror of watching another classmate vanish, of wondering who would be next, of feeling helpless in a world that seemed determined to eliminate us one by one.

"Focus on his face," I told Mochi when she couldn't sleep, guiding her through memory exercises. "Remember the details separately, then build the whole. It helps manage the loss."

I'd quieted panicked thoughts, structured spiralling emotions into something survivable. Taught them breathing exercises and visualisation techniques. Used my Mnemonic abilities to help them sort traumatic memories into manageable fragments rather than overwhelming wholes.

I'd told myself it didn't matter if I cried, because someone had to remember clearly. Someone had to maintain the narrative, preserve the timeline of events, ensure that nothing important was forgotten in the fog of grief. That was my job—to remember, to organise, to maintain clarity when others couldn't.

I kept order in the storm. That was my role. That was always my role. Since childhood, since the incident with the teacher, I had been the one to maintain composure, to protect Mochi, to ensure we survived intact. To remember precisely so that nothing like it could happen again. Even before we came to this world, I was the organised one. The one who remembers everything.

But that logic didn't hold now.

Because he was here.

Andie.

Alive.

Whole.

Standing in the clearing like a ghost made flesh, his school uniform somehow still intact, that familiar confused expression on his face, as if he couldn't quite understand the commotion his presence was causing. Standing there like he hadn't just erased himself from our world for forty-eight hours. Like he hadn't dragged us all through the kind of helplessness we barely survived last time, when we lost the boys, when we had to dig graves and say words over them that felt hollow and insufficient.

I'd been so focused on maintaining everyone else's memories that I hadn't realised how deeply mine had embedded. How the image of the workbench where he'd last been seen had seared itself into my mind, the tools laid out neatly, the half-finished gel blaster prototype still waiting for his return. The image of his disappearance, frozen in my mind like a cracked photo—refused to fade, no matter how many times I realigned my own thoughts, no matter how carefully I tried to package it away, to analyse it dispassionately, to treat it as data rather than emotional trauma. The moment when Yuna came running back, screaming that the hooded figure had taken him. The expression on Kurenai's face when she confirmed he was gone.

Miyako was already there, fists against his chest, breaking and breaking until she folded into his arms. Her grief and relief so naked, so raw, I could almost feel it across the clearing. The others hung back, giving them space, understanding intuitively that she had first claim on him, first right to expression.

And I—my system should've shut it all down. The feelings rising in my chest, threatening to overflow. The trembling in my hands that I couldn't seem to still. The pressure building behind my eyes. I should have been able to process it all internally, to filter it through my Mnemonic channels, to categorise and file it away neatly where it couldn't disrupt my function.

It didn't. Instead, something inside me just... snapped. Like a dam giving way after holding back too much for too long.

Miyako should have her moment. She was there for him when Mochi and I withdrew from him and the other males because of what happened. When we couldn't bear to be near any boy, any male presence, without feeling sick with memory and fear. She deserved the hug, the kisses and whatever he could provide first. The comfort, the reassurance, the tender touches that said more than words ever could.

Followed by Mochi, because she is my sister and timid. The one I've always protected, always put first. The one whose trauma matched my own but who had fewer defences, fewer coping mechanisms.

Then me, the more assertive one. The one who could wait, who could manage, who could handle her emotions with rationality and care.

Such was the pecking order.

But instead, I started shaking.

It began in my fingertips, a tremor so subtle I almost missed it. Then it travelled up my arms, into my chest, until my entire body vibrated with something I couldn't name. Not the slight tremor of contained emotion, but violent tremors that seemed to start at my core and radiate outward. Shaking like I was standing in a blizzard without shelter, like my body was trying to expel something too large to contain. Disbelief. Joy. Confusion. But I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Could only stand there, quaking, as my carefully constructed systems began to crumble.

Then a hiccup caught in my throat, and the breath behind it cracked wide open. A sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob escaped me, drawing eyes in my direction.

"I organised everyone else's memories," I whispered, not sure if I was speaking to anyone in particular or just giving voice to the realisation breaking over me. "I thought if I kept them clear, I could keep myself clear too."

Andie and the others turned, startled. I didn't know if he even heard me fully across the clearing, with Miyako still clinging to him, with the others beginning to crowd around.

"But I couldn't..." My voice caught, broke, reformed itself around the pain. "I couldn't organise what losing you felt like."

The tears came then. Not the quiet kind I could hide behind a sleeve, the dignified tears I sometimes permitted myself in private moments. But hot, helpless ones that blurred my vision and made my legs weak. Tears that burned trails down my cheeks and dripped from my chin without any attempt at concealment or control.

I covered my mouth with both hands like it would stop the sound—but it didn't. The sob that tore from my throat was primal, unfiltered, raw in a way I hadn't allowed myself to be since the incident, since I'd learned that control was the only protection against a world that could hurt you when you weren't looking.

My Mnemonic channels flickered with erratic pulses of emotion—too strong, too raw to sort. Like trying to organise a hurricane while standing in its path, like trying to categorise a tsunami as it crashed over you. The memories wouldn't stay where I put them—Andie at eight years old, offering half his popsicle after mine fell in the dirt. Andie at twelve, sitting silently beside me at my father's funeral, not trying to fill the silence with meaningless words. Andie saving us from the home invaders, Andie creating our sanctuary, Andie at the burial, offering comfort to others while carrying his own grief. And then Andie, gone. A conspicuous absence that couldn't be filled, couldn't be managed, couldn't be organised into something bearable.

Mochi looked like she wanted to run to me, her expressive face twisted with concern, but even she hesitated. She'd never seen me like this, never witnessed me losing control so completely. None of them had. I was the strong one, the steady one, the one who helped others process their pain.

I took one shaky step forward, then another, my legs threatening to give out with each movement. Until I was close enough to see the stunned guilt on Andie's face as he watched me fall apart. Close enough to see the recognition in his eyes—that I had been suffering too, that I had been breaking too, that I had been lost too.

"You weren't just a memory," I told him, my voice thick with tears, words punctuated by hiccupping breaths. "You were a constant. And I didn't realise how much that mattered until I thought I'd lost you too."

The admission cost something I couldn't name, some final barrier between who I pretended to be and who I actually was. Between the collected Mnemonic who organised others' pain and the broken girl who had her own, raw and unprocessed, festering beneath the surface.

He reached for me. Gently. Hesitantly. One hand extending toward me while the other still held Miyako, his expression unreadable through my tears.

I didn't reach him.

My world turned black at that moment. Consciousness seemingly faded; my system finally overloaded after two days of managing everyone else's grief while suppressing my own. The edges of my vision darkened, narrowed, collapsed, and I felt myself pitching forward, falling into nothing.

Because sometimes, even a Mnemonic needed to be remembered—not for what she could fix, but for what she could feel. The girl who remembered too much, but who never let herself be truly seen until she was broken too thoroughly to hide it anymore.

The last thing I registered before unconsciousness claimed me completely was the sensation of being caught—strong arms preventing my collapse, a frantic voice calling my name, and the strange, disconnected thought that even in this moment of ultimate vulnerability, I wasn't alone.

That someone remembered me, too.

I remember you, Andie. Every moment. Every word. Every broken promise and every kept one.

I remember everything.

And then, nothing.