Akira thanks Ms. Takahashi for the meal and retires to his cubicle.
In the virtual world, he can see Yoshiko has left him a message: There was a silent understanding between us. Thank you, my friend. There’s a medieval scroll tacked to the wall of Yoshiko’s store with instructions for Akira to go to the lake. He pushes open the gate to the English garden and hikes down a field of red and yellow tulips. At the end of the dock, a play button hovers over the water with another message: I’m sorry. For everything I never told you, for everything we never were. Ask me anything. When he pushes it, Yoshiko’s avatar, the Pegasus, splashes out from under the water and lands on the dock, lowers itself for Akira to climb onto its back. As the Pegasus flaps its wings, Akira holds on tight. Yoshiko’s recorded voice begins to play as he soars around Yoshiko’s kingdom, over her store and garden, around the lake, through a valley of waterfalls, weaving between a cluster of shipwrecks. Akira realizes that Yoshiko had an AI/smart avatar designed, one capable of answering preprogrammed questions, of sounding and acting like her.
“We can just fly, or you can ask me something,” Yoshiko’s avatar says. “Isn’t it beautiful here?”
“Is Seiji your father?”
“I ran away from home. I blamed him for my mother’s death, but I never knew how to take it back. I thought my husband would save me, but he didn’t. I thought my daughter would save me, and she did for a while, until she got sick and I failed her.”
“What’s your favorite dessert?”
“Coffee ice cream.”
“Favorite music?”
“Queen.”
“Did you notice me in real life? Did you see me watching you?”
“I never noticed anybody. When I worked at the stall, I lived in my own world. I let the noise of the city envelop me. Sometimes I felt guilty for enjoying the time away from my daughter. Those hours almost felt like how things used to be. Maybe a part of me wanted us to meet, but I think I made my decision a long time ago.”
“I thought we understood each other.”
“You only knew a small part of me, but I appreciated you being here. I had to do what was best for me and my daughter.”
“Best?”
“It’s what I believe. It’s what was true for me.”
“Did any part of you care for me?”
“Of course. Like a close acquaintance. Like someone you just met but who you recognize for sharing a similar life experience. My poor, naive boy. Remember me if you must, if it helps you move on. I wish everything for you.”
Akira replays the Pegasus experience several times, as if there is some hidden message between the facts of her life. He falls asleep wearing his VR visor and leaves his pod only when going to the bathroom becomes an emergency. Part of him believes there’s a chance she might sign back on, even though the recording says goodbye. Another part of him knows she is gone forever.
In the early morning, Akira realizes, more out of exhaustion than logic, that he needs to stop. His eyes have to readjust to the world after seeing through the visor for so long. And there, on the front page of the Mainichi newspaper in the lobby, he sees their faces—Yoshiko and her daughter, gazing back at him. Akira closes his eyes, convinces himself that he is seeing things, but their faces remain when he opens them again. A strange, burning sensation spreads throughout his body and it seems as if nothing can extinguish it. My poor, naive boy. Remember me if you must, if it helps you move on. I wish everything for you.
He returns to his pod and checks the news online, hoping there has been a mistake. But as Akira scrolls down the page, he comes to a photograph of two body bags being rolled out of an apartment building—one smaller than the other. The headline: TRAGEDY AS CITY AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS FAIL TO OFFER ADEQUATE SOCIAL AND MEDICAL SUPPORT POST-PANDEMIC. SUICIDE GROUPS FILL IN THE GAPS WHERE SOCIAL SERVICES FAIL. One article describes barbiturates found on the scene. Another notes that the pill bottle was emblazoned with the logo for an under-the-table euthanasia service called the Harmony Collective. Akira touches the screen, holds his arm like that until it becomes weak and uncomfortable and he can hold it there no longer, and then puts on his visor and enters the coordinates for the street referenced in the article, walking through a barren Tokyo until he finds the building where Yoshiko and her daughter lived. He reaches for the door, but the map program won’t let him enter residential buildings, so he just looks up at the windows, and imagines her looking back.
In the days following the death of Yoshiko and her daughter, Seiji notices Akira’s silence as he works, no longer asking questions about Sun Wave or his life. He places his hand on Akira’s shoulder one evening and tells him to take a break, join him for tea. He fetches a kettle and two paper cups and places them on the floor, invites Akira to sit.