There are two doors in his dreams: one in white and one in gray.

​

For as long as he can remember, Ryuunosuke hasn’t dreamt of anything else. He never fails to take the white door home to the comfort of his bed, just before the clock hits five in the morning. His heart slows to its normal pace, his fingers and toes recovering from a mild numbness, his head clearing from its haze. He breathes in, breathes out, sits up slowly. The two doors slip into the back of his mind, as they normally do now that the day can finally begin in its endless routine.

 

It ends just as quickly, Ryuunosuke vaguely thinks as he takes the train home. It’s his last thought before there’s a sudden and harsh jerk of the train car and his head succumbs to a terrifying darkness.

​

There are two doors when he next realizes it: one in white and one in gray.

​

Ryuunosuke never fails to take the white door home—but this time, he hesitates. His heart races, his extremities are going numb, his head is foggy. There’s a note ringing in his ears that he can’t place: something singular yet multiple, something all-encompassing. His breath hitches as he reaches for the gray door.

 

What appears next is a shock of color that shoots down his spine, stimulating his senses and turning the dial. The blues of the lights are vividly saturated against the dark checkered tiles, seeming to beat with the rhythm of the bass that echoes throughout the space. His head scrambles to catch up and process what’s going on around him: who he is, where he is, what he is.

​

Okay, I can answer one of those things. Ryuunosuke is still his name.

​

Past all the neon lights, a mirror ball sits overhead like an artificial sun. He doesn’t know exactly where this place is, but his brain cells helpfully supply the word ‘club’ even if he’s never actually been to one to know for sure.

 

The last point should be a given—he’s himself, he’s Ryuunosuke, he’s human—but things feel off. Not significantly. Just enough that the axis of his reality is tilted one extra degree further than normal: all the outlines remain the same, but it doesn’t completely align.

 

He tries to remember anything else. Nothing comes to mind.

 

An electric dread jolts his body into motion. Ryuunosuke finds himself too unnerved to try and fill in the blanks of what happened before he came to be in this particular place. There’s nothing to do except move forward, onto the checkered tile.

 

Everything around him explodes once his foot hits the floor: blackened silhouettes of people bloom from the tiles, the walls, the air. They dance and sway to the beat as the bodies multiply, filling the area with life as artificial as the mirror sun above them. The lights begin to transition between different shades, the music ebbs and flows into different genres despite the consistent pulse that make up the club’s heartbeat. Ever polite and very out of his element, he tries to weave past the masses in an attempt to make sense of any of it. Briefly, he wonders if he can somehow stumble upon a more open area. Possibly take a breather, possibly find a way out.  

 

Instead, he stumbles upon a pair of shockingly bright eyes that twinkle against the dark colors and synthetic lights.

 

“Huh?”

 

This place, this miniature garden far removed from everything he had even known, is a storm of carefully structured conformity clashing in tandem to create the illusion of abstract debauchery—and the young man before him is a pearl firmly planted amidst the rolling waves, with white hair and light skin wrapped in violets that no one else seems to possess.

 

Different.

 

Striking.

 

The man with the violet eyes seems surprised to see him. “And you are?”

 

“Me? Um, my name is…” What’s his name again? Hadn’t it just been on his mind?

 

The young man grows alarmed at his confusion, quickly grabbing his hand and pulling him through the crowd. Despite the chill of the club, even of his own skin, the young man’s hand burns like a comfortable flame. “Hurry, you need to remember it! Think hard!”

​

He doesn’t really get why it’s important, but he tries to jostle his mind anyway as their pace quickens. One would think that something’s chasing after us. He glances over his shoulder just in case; nothing of the sort crosses his gaze except the flicker of recollection.  

 

“…Ryuu? Ah, that’s it! My name is Ryuu!”

 

The pace slows. Their hands don’t pull away.

 

“Ryuu-san, is it?” The young man says, wrapping his lips around the syllables of his name like a precious treasure as his gaze leads towards a grand staircase leading up. “Take care not to forget it again. Always keep it in your mind, somewhere.”

 

What will happen if he forgets it completely?

 

“It’s how the dancehall traps you,” the young man replies. Ryuu hadn’t even been aware that he voiced his question out loud. The young man also seems to pick that up. “This place is a loss of sensibility and restraint. From the moment you get here, you start forgetting things like who you are or simple functions like keeping quiet. Trying to keep as much of yourself as possible is the key to withstanding it.”

 

“Is that what this place is?” Ryuu asks as they begin to climb up the staircase at a much more reasonable pace—like an unspoken apology from his new companion for the sudden sprint earlier. “A dancehall?”

 

“From what I gathered, it’s the last stop at the end of the world.”

 

…What?!

​

 

“At least, the end of our world as we know it,” the young man clarifies while he continues to lead by the hand. The electrifying air in his companion shifts to a dull thrum as he nervously tries to explain further, recognizing that Ryuu still can’t make much sense of it. “I haven’t gleaned much information on what’s going on, really. Sometimes people just become part of the dancefloor right away. Sometimes they’re like you and I and they still remember certain things like names or lives. Sometimes they forget and become like the crowd nonetheless and sometimes they just disappear.”

 

“Does that mean we’re… dead?”

 

“I don’t think we’re quite there yet. But we’re just short of it and the dancehall is the holding place until we reach that point.”

 

They continue up the staircase in relative quiet after that. It gives him time for the new information to sink in properly: a dancehall at the end of the world, a holding place until people have truly and fully died…

 

“Do you still remember your name?”

 

“Ryuu,” he says, confidently this time. “What about yours? Do you remember?”

The young man doesn’t turn his head to face Ryuu—just keeps looking ahead—as he answers, “It’s Sou.”

 

“Sou?”

 

“I don’t think it’s completely right myself,” Sou tells him softly, almost quiet enough to be drowned out by the distant pulse of the dancehall’s music, “but it’s all I’ve got.”

 

Still better than nothing, is left unspoken. Considering the nature of the dancehall itself, even a half-memory is better than none at all. If he really thinks about it, ‘Ryuu’ might also just be a half-memory—terrifying and frustrating because it hadn’t been that long since he had arrived in this place with everything relatively intact. He feels Sou’s hand grip a little tighter, feels the warmth scald just enough to break him free of his thoughts.

 

“I’ll get you out of here,” Sou says. “There’s hope for you yet. You just need to try and remember as much as you can about yourself.”

 

“Sou is pretty reliable.”

 

Ryuu doesn’t get an answer in return, though he catches a glimpse of Sou’s lips partially forming a shape. A veil of quiet falls over them as they climb higher. The thrum of music can barely be heard, but they can still feel it beneath their skin like a new and inescapable blood coursing through them. All the while, he keeps trying to remind himself: my name is Ryuu, my name is Ryuu, my name is Ryuu.

 

Eventually, the air grows fresher. There are no doors that mark the entrance to the high-rise rooftop of the dancehall: just the lack of steps on the stairway and a starless night sky that overlooks a neon-studded sea of urban emptiness below. Ryuu feels like he’s seen all this before somehow. In the muddled waters of his head, he parses out daylight instead of nighttime. Sounds of birds and cars and streets instead of faint music buzzing beneath his feet.

 

Work.

 

Sou’s been watching him the entire time since they came to the roof. He smiles gently. “Did something pop up?”

 

“I think I used to have a job in a place similar to this,” Ryuu says. “That’s all. It’s not much, honestly.”

 

“It’s plenty.”

 

“Really?”

 

There’s no railing that lined the edges of the roof. Just slightly raised stonework. It becomes a blurred border that Sou slowly steps on and treads as he says, “Common things like names, ages, and occupations are extremely helpful, especially if they can be traced to places. Being able to remember a place might cause someone to remember important life events or even the last thing they recall happening before they got here. You don’t really get as much if you solely focus on easily malleable components like personality or interests. After all, the dancehall has a way of changing people just because they can’t remember how they used to be.”

 

So, what does the little he knows say about him?

 

“You could have had a white-collar job,” Sou answers. Again, Ryuu hadn’t even been aware he talked out loud. Maybe that’s a sign that he’s slowly slipping into the state the dancehall wants, so he focuses on Sou’s words, on controlling his own actions. “You look young and you’re receptive to instruction, so you could be a salaryman.”

 

“Salaryman?”

 

It sounds right, but doesn’t at the same time.

 

Why is that?

 

A palm breaks through his thoughts—Ryuu looks up to see Sou, still up on the edge, offering his hand to him. Pearl strands against the ink black curtain overhead: he thinks that, unlike the artificial sun of the dancehall just floors down, Sou is the moon whose smile draws the tides towards him.

 

Ryuu takes the hand.

 

“Isn’t this dangerous?”

 

“I heard that sometimes a little danger can spark important things,” Sou says with a small laugh, making his eyes crinkle into crescents as he takes Ryuu’s hands and guides them to his waist. He wraps his arms around Ryuu’s shoulders and pulls him close. “Even if it’s at the end of the world, it’s still a dancehall. It’d be a shame to let that go to waste when such a handsome guy is with me.”

 

Had Ryuu always been a man who was so easily swayed by the whims of people like Sou? Hearing his companion coo over how his sudden blush is cute is a new feeling, but he doesn’t dislike it.

 

He tries to steer the conversation away before the teasing becomes relentless, just as he tries to move them safely up and down the rooftop edge. “Do you remember anything else about yourself?”

 

“Aside from my name? No. Actually, I don’t think Sou’s even my proper name.” Thin lashes fall closed like the brush of a spider lily’s tepals. The radiance of his smile wanes into a gentle glow, something restrained and uncomfortable. Ryuu thinks it strangely fits his face. “There’s a part of me that’s alright with it, though. Going on like this—just existing, meeting others like us, trying to stay aware of everything—is fine.”   

 

“Aren’t you curious?”

 

“Sure. But somehow I know that I’ll regret finding out.”

 

He’s whirled around by Sou, who tries to pull a strange maneuver. Something about the sudden change of direction...

 

He slips off the roof.

 

Sou doesn’t let go of his hand and falls right with him, a wide grin lighting up everything around them like the true sun of this forsaken place.

 

“Ryuunosuke!” Sou calls as they plummet down—and suddenly Ryuu remembers Yes, my name is Ryuunosuke. How does Sou know? “Danger’s at an all-time high, so act fast! Try to remember!”  

 

He closes his eyes. His name is Ryuunosuke. He could be a salaryman. A sudden jerk in a new direction.

​

“My train crashed,” Ryuunosuke shouts past all the wind of their descent. “I was on my way home from work and the train crashed, I think! So maybe I’m dead?!”

 

They’re approaching the very bottom: an expanse of pure white that looks ready to consume them. Ryuunosuke wants to gulp, but all air is leaving him. His heartbeat races to the speeding tempo of the dancehall that looms beside them, making his head pound.

 

Through it all, he feels Sou continue to grip his hand and yell:

 

“It’ll be okay!”

​

When they disappear into the blinding brightness, Ryuunosuke feels himself being shoved through a door he can’t see.

 

He wakes up to white. Sterilized white, with some worn patches here and there. His father and brothers crowd him in tears of relief. A nurse comes in to check on him, telling his family not to go too close—give him air, space. She advises him not to get up as she looks over the various monitors he’s attached to.

 

“Do you know your name?”

 

“…Ryuunosuke Tsunashi.”

 

The list of questions goes on: age, occupation, place of residency, if he recognizes the people around him, if he remembers what had happened. A train wreck had occurred during the evening rush hour and, while not completely fatal, many had been left injured and concussed. Luckily, it seems that Ryuunosuke had suffered no head trauma and only a torn rotator cuff on his left shoulder.

 

His eyes tiredly circuit the hospital room as the nurse addresses his family and finds that another occupant lies in a bed beside his.

 

Oh, he registers. The company vice president, Mr. Osaka—

 

Pearl hair.

 

A warm hand.

 

Smiles like the phases of the moon.

 

Ryuunosuke inhales deeply.

 

Sougo Osaka.

 

“Apparently that guy’s been there for a few days,” his second brother tells him as his youngest brother and father go to get food. His first brother rolls his eyes, trying to hold back his thoughts about gossiping in front of the gossiped party, and merely takes a seat in one of the chairs. “Don’t really know what happened to him, but he’s stable. Just waiting for him to wake up, if ever.”

 

There are two doors in his dreams that night: one in white and one in gray.

 

My name is Ryuunosuke.

 

His name is Sougo.

 

It’ll be okay.

 

He doesn’t hesitate to open the gray door.