Ran didn't dare take another look back at the dimly lit bookstore after she angrily left to the main street lit brightly with rows of street lamps and many still-operating stores. Her feet carried her deeper into the heart of the city where the tallest skyscrapers stood, not caring about arriving at a particular destination. The cool night breeze helped to cool her head a bit. She also felt much better after childishly spouting out a few insults at Owner.
Her soft angled eyebrows furrowed at the thought of him. He acted really strangely during their argument. Everything about his messy black hair and upturned hazel eyes, his cleanliness obsession, and his relaxed, nonchalant attitude had the same familiarity to them, yet something about him was off. She couldn't really pin down what is was. Maybe it was his overly cautious and hostile behavior? Or maybe it was that cold, unfamiliar glare he had in his eyes?
She shivered when she remembered those dead eyes of his, staring at her as if she was a stranger. 'Wait...' Ran stopped in her tracks in front of a 24 hour convenient store called Con-VT, 'A stranger?' She crossed her arms as she pondered over her last thought. She found it quite unusual that Owner kept insisting that he didn't know her throughout their entire argument. At first, she thought it was just Owner stubbornly trying to chase her off using a crude method and ignored it.
But... now that she carefully recalled his empty eyes, closed body language, and emotionless tone, as if he was interacting with a rude stranger, she found herself somehow believing in his claim.
'What if Owner suffered from some sort of amnesia?' Ran started to seriously ponder over this idea. After all, there was no other way to explain Owner's abrupt change in behavior.
She stood motionless in front of the convenient store for a long time, until that stiff figure was broken by her abrupt laughs. "Pfft," Ran was hiding her mouth with her hand, trying to force herself to stop laughing, but the laughs kept coming. The people nearby were startled by her sudden laughs, stared in dismay for a quick second, and just shook it off as another crazy drunk person roaming the streets.
Ran eventually stopped laughing and wiped away a small tear that formed in the corner of her right eye. She actually couldn't believe she pondered over Owner suffering from amnesia. 'I mean, sure he is worryingly clumsy sometimes and has incredibly slow reflexes...' Ran's last thought echoed through her mind.
She's seen Owner's surprisingly clumsy side numerous times as his worker. She would throw him books whenever they organized the shelves together and would throw him pens or pencils whenever he needed to quickly jot something down, all of which he usually failed to catch. This often resulted in the thrown item comically hitting his face or body. This happened too often to the point where Ran suspected if his calm demeanor was just a facade to cover up his goofy, clumsy inner self.
Suddenly, as if an idea came to her, Ran pulled out her phone and dialed in a number. 'It's only a little past midnight, please pick up!' Ran prayed to herself as she waited for the other side to pick up.
"Hello?" A gentle female voice answered Ran's call.
"Elly!" Ran was relieved when she heard her alluring voice, "Sorry for calling so late. Actually I called because I'm concerned that something happened to Owner. Did he happen to get amnesia somehow?"
Ran waited patiently for an answer, but all she got was her soft breathing in return. Slowly losing her patience, Ran almost spoke up again before she finally got a reply. "I'm sorry, I think you got the wrong number," Ran's right eye twitched when she heard this awfully familiar sentence.
"Elysia Sterling," Ran pulled out the full name card, "It's me, Ran! Don't tell me you actually forgot about me too?"
"I'm sorry. I don't know anybody by that name," Elysia replied with with an apologetic tone and hung up on Ran. Ran stood there dazed by Elysia's last words. She actually said the last sentence as a joke, but who knew that she would actually receive that nightmarish response?
'There's no way that Elly also coincidentally suffered from amnesia the same time as Owner,' Ran reasoned with her inner self, her outer self still staring stunned at her phone screen. Her motionless outer self moved when Ran furrowed her eyebrows again in frustration. There was something terrible happening with everyone around her.
...
Ran continued to dial in some of her other friends' numbers, some of whom she met through Elysia and Owner. But all of them gave the same disappointing, "Sorry, I don't know who you are," reply and hung up on Ran's stunned self.
After calling all of her friends and receiving that same upsetting reply, Ran's frustration hit her peak. There's no way that everybody she knew simultaneously suffered from amnesia. She felt her current situation was both extremely amusing and exhausting: her house disappeared and Owner and her friends' memories of her 'vanished.' At this point, she just wondered if they were all playing a huge prank on her.
She checked the current time: a quarter past 1 am. Ran suddenly felt tired after seeing the current time. She was usually an early sleeper, in bed by midnight, but the past two days messed up her healthy routine. With no choice left, Ran came to the decision to spend a night at the cheapest motel or hotel and deal with everything after a much needed sleep.
She felt her awfully thin wallet and frowned. 'I should at least pay in cash,' Ran entered Con-VT and accessed their atm. She ignored the odd stare the cashier gave her. After all, she was slightly embarrassed for standing in front of the store for almost an hour but not entering it.
She allowed the atm to suck up her card and waited patiently for the cash options to appear. But... the machine immediately spat her card back out. She frowned before pushing it back in, only for it to push it out again. This process continued until the cashier cleared his throat, and Ran could only sadly give up. She felt like her luck was at bottom since the machine even started to work against her.
She looked through her wallet and tried inserting the card her mom gave her this time; however, it failed once again. Ran gave up quickly this time and inserted the card her dad gave her. It worked this time.
'I wonder if something's wrong with the cards I tried earlier?' Ran's worries started to grow bigger since the cards she tried had quite the sum in them, both from her own hard work and her mom's grateful support. Although she possessed this large sum, Ran never stopped conserving her money in the littlest ways, even if it meant living in a dirt cheap house.
Ran decided to take out three hundred in cash, hoping that this much should be enough for a few nights in a motel (or hotel) as she figured out her house situation. She left the convenient store and took out her phone again to call her parents to compla- explain her situation to them.
She dialed in her parents' home number and waited. She was slightly nervous about calling them since it's been quite some time due to her busy working schedule. She waited for a long time, hearing the countless of rings, before a "sorry this number is not available" reply made her frown unhappily. Have her parents changed their home phone number without telling her?
'No way, no way, no way,' Ran's shook her head repeatedly. Her parents would always update on her on the smallest things, even if they never received a reply from her. Confused, she dialed in her mom's personal number. Somebody picked up this time. But it definitely wasn't her mom.
"Who is this?" A husky woman's voice picked up the phone.
Ran was the one who hung up this time. She knew how her mom's voice sounded, and it definitely wasn't the same as the one who picked up her mom's phone. Ran held her head in frustration as she dialed in her dad's number. Like with her mom's situation, someone she didn't know picked up.
"Who is this? How did you get the number to the-" A hostile voice answered the phone, but before Ran heard anything else, she hung up in frustration. Ran gave up trying to contact her parents and shifted her focus to finding a cheap motel/hotel. She continued following the main street towards the tall skyscrapers, drowning out in her thoughts.
These past two days have been the literal worst days of her life. It didn't make it any better that they occurred consecutively. All of the little events piled up to overwhelm Ran. She felt like her place in the world had disappeared along with Owner, Elysia, and her other friends' memories. Nobody seemed to remember her anymore, as if her own memories were a lie. She even lost her only home. Are there any traces of her left in this unfamiliar world?
"-an!"
She fought back her threatening tears, as her mood just worsened with her upsetting thoughts.
"Ran!"
An awkward, abrupt tap on her shoulder snapped Ran out of her thoughts. Surprised, she quickly turned around to see a familiar innocent-looking pair of round blue eyes.