Sayaka wasn't even aware she was holding her breath as her thumb hovered over the unlock button. The familiar little lock icon winked open, and her phone's home screen sprang to life - the same cracked protector, the same pastel wallpaper with all six capture targets from Mystic Love in unnecessarily theatrical positions.
Relief rushed through her chest. For one delicate pulse, it was almost enough to fool her into thinking everything was fine. That she'd just woke up in her small Tokyo apartment, late for yet another failed interview.
Her hands trembled as she tapped the camera icon. Nothing. A flat black screen. A tiny loading circle spun and spun at the bottom, never resolving into an image. She tried again. Still nothing. Her heart did a slow, unpleasant roll. She flicked to her gallery instead. Surely all her old photos were still there — blurry shots of ramen bowls, Rika's goofy face mashed up against the camera, random cherry blossoms from her last failed "clear my head" walk.
She hurriedly pressed on her phone icon. At the very least, she could check her phone logs, correct? Rika's phone number, her parents' most recent missed call, even a spam call from a bogus insurance agency, all regular. But instead of bringing up recent calls, the software simply flickered and returned her to the home page. Over and over. Regardless of anything she attempted.
"There's no reason. Just... broken."
Her laugh was faint and wobbly.
"Of course. Why would any of this make sense?"
She attempted to use her browser with unusually cold fingertips.
It opened but promptly showed "No signal" with a sad little icon.
There are no Wi-Fi bars, and no carrier name. There's nothing but empty space at the top.
"Figures. Internet would have been too much to ask for, right?"
Her fingertip hovered over the brilliant green LINE icon, her heart tightening.
Please. At the very least, let her read her past discussions.
Thank God, the app opened and there they were. Rows of stickers, idiotic memes, walls of Rika mocking about pork belly and "setting a new sad record in job hunting history." She could scroll through them all, each one painfully normal.
But that was it. She pressed the text input field, but the keyboard did not display. Tapping on her friend's profile did nothing. There are no calls or voice notes. Just frozen discussions from the past, like a scrapbook that was left open.
Finally, almost instinctively, her thumb discovered Mystic Love. The heart logo pulsed once, twice, and then split into fragmented pink pixels that rolled down the screen before going dark.
"Even my games?" Then what is the point?"
Sayaka let the phone slide onto the duvet beside her, her hands becoming lax. It was suddenly so heavy, a frigid, betraying weight. The one foolish remnant of her former world that had followed her here, and it was half-dead. They are mocking her. She brought her knees to her chest and placed her forehead there, pushing her eyes tight. In the silence, the heavy perfume of roses and aged wood seemed to draw in closer, thick enough to choke on.
Her mind kept returning to that one irritating issue.
So why did it ring?
If her phone was half-dead, had no service, and everything else was frozen, why had it bothered to play her Mystic Love ringtone like some smug little traitor?
Probably just a glitch.
Maybe it's the universe's notion of a joke. She wasn't a technological genius. She was a job-searching failure who had to Woogle how to properly delete apps.
"Ugh, screw it."
Sayaka sat up, drew back her arm, and threw the phone at the wall in an outburst of childish rage.
It struck with a soft thud, bounced off the luxuriously upholstered panel, thank goodness for aristocratic taste in padded walls and landed safely on the thick carpet.
She looked after it, exhaling hard.
"What a stupid piece of garbage. Cannot even break properly"
Then she dropped backward across the enormous bed with a loud, dramatic groan, arms extended, staring up at the gilded ceiling, as if the delicate floral carvings offended her.
The phone then had a small mechanical blip as it lay face down.
And in a thin, glitchy, almost sulky artificial voice, it croaked out:
"… OUCH."
Sayaka froze. Then she gave a quick, surprised bark of laughter, twisting her features into a crooked smirk. "Really? So now you're complaining? What's next? You want an apology…"
But the words caught up with her head, and she lost her sense of humor. Her eyes widened as her stomach flipped in a hard, unpleasant somersault. Her phone. Just. Talked. She jumped upright in bed so quickly that the sheets wrapped around her legs, nearly pushing her forward off the mattress.
However, the phone did not stop. It gave another tiny electronic shudder and grumbled in the same strangely flat voice:
"… RUDE. I have feelings, you know"
Sayaka's eyes were so wide they hurt. Her heart pounded frantically in her chest.
"Huh?"
The phone made a tiny crackle, like to static coughing.
"… YOU COULD HAVE JUST… SET ME DOWN GENTLY…"
She stood there teetering, arms flailing—then in a flash carrying a pillow for protection, hair a dark tangle around her shoulders, staring at the phone like it had sprouted fangs. Sayaka stood still at the bed, her heart pounding against her ribs so hard that it almost ached. The phone lay a few feet away on the carpet, facedown like a scolded cat, still emitting faint crackles. Then it talked again, glitching and pathetic.
"… STILL IGNORING ME… SO COLD…"
Sayaka's brow twitched so aggressively that it felt like it might crawl off her face.
"Oh my God, are you really sulking right now? "
She slowly began to move ahead.
One cautious step, then another, sinking into the thick rug with each painstaking movement, as if tiptoeing across a minefield.
The phone huffed—or as near to a mechanical huff as she had ever heard.
"I DIDN'T ASK TO BE THROWN INTO A WALL… YOU MONKEY"
The girl was unsure if she would be impressed, embarrassed, or angered by her phone's insult. In her mind like literally… "monkey?" that's the best it can get? She crouched low and looked at it as if she were about to pick up a venomous spider. The screen flashed faintly, illuminating only enough to see a glitchy whirl of pixels.
"FEELINGS. REMEMBER? Please handle with care next time."
Sayaka's shoulders slumped. She dragged a palm down her face, caught between incredulity and the need to simply collapse on the floor and give up. Her thoughts just scrambled with a lot of questions and uncertainty to everything. Today's gonna be a big mess.