C | Chapter 4.1 | Crack | Crack in the wall

The convenience of selective memory was a blessing. Disagreeable and sad events could be forgotten quickly, leaving nearly no trace. When his adoptive father was murdered, or when his mother succumbed to severe depression and schizophrenia and began losing her mind, Ian didn’t let the tragedy consume him or fall apart. He considered himself lucky for it.

Even now, when he looked back, the significant, painful memories were already faint. He barely remembered the bone-chilling dampness of the drizzling rain on the day of his mother’s recent funeral. With time, Ian would probably forget it even rained that day. The sadness of seeing only half a dozen people at the funeral and the awkwardness from lacking memories to share of his mother would fade away too. The remnants of his mother’s death would transform into something far removed from sorrow. Thus, the tragedy of the Winchell House could remain quiet.

“Is that luck?”

But Ian wore a faint smirk on his lips.

“The fact that I can’t remember anything about that bastard?”

After the Revenant left him alone, Ian sat in the empty suite, prickly like a cactus in a desert. He had his laptop open, but he didn’t feel like doing anything. His mind was cluttered, his gaze aimless over the monitor without really seeing it.

A small notification popped up, signaling a new email, bringing Ian’s attention back to the screen. The email account was one he primarily used for correspondence with Tim Hogan, and upon checking the inbox, he saw that the sender was indeed Tim. Without much thought, he opened the email, which contained little more than an instruction to check the attached file for an updated task.

Ian clicked the file.

Pop!

The monitor went dark. Before he had a chance to react, it flickered back on, this time displaying a photo.

“…….”

It was a picture of him, looking reluctantly at the camera, with an awkward smile. Behind him was a white building surrounded by lush greenery and shade. He wore a light blue outfit, likely a uniform. Not only was the picture unfamiliar, but so was everything in it, except for his own face.

“What is this…?”

A command prompt window opened on the photo, letters beginning to appear.

Ian, my lover.
Please come back to me.

The blood drained from Ian’s face. Someone had hacked into his computer. He quickly tried to shut down the computer, closed the memo window, and opened the antivirus software. Seeing the memo appear in real time meant the connection was still live. Ian ran tcpdump, setting it to capture all packets moving to and from the VMware IP. Ethereal began to display a long list of scrolls. The worm detected by the antivirus software was a single type. Ian saved the Ethereal file and opened it in IDA Pro. He didn’t decompile worm code often, but he needed to find the target of the worm.

However, the code didn’t search for any .dll or .exe files. It was surprisingly simple, a meaningless repetition of binary routines.

“This…,”

The supposed worm was actually an encrypted message. Though he didn’t remember it, the method felt familiar.

Ian copied the code and pasted it into a memo window. He noted the intervals of 0s and 1s as numbers, then substituted them for letters in alphabetical order to complete a sentence.

PICK UP THE PHONE.

“…….”

Just as Ian read the message, the hotel room phone began ringing loudly. Ian rose from the bar, walked slowly, and picked up the receiver.

“Hello.”

The voice on the other end was familiar.

[Hi, Ian.]

It was him—Leo Sebastian, with his golden curls and his lighthearted, unpredictable smile.

[I miss you.]

He whispered in a voice that sounded like it was on the verge of tears.

The meeting place Leo Sebastian had chosen was a café three blocks from the hotel. After what happened yesterday, Ian didn’t have the nerve to go to the same café.

Leo Sebastian, with a camera tripod slung over his shoulder, approached with his usual cheerful expression. Seeing him run over, Ian stuck his foot out to push the chair across from him.

“Sit.”
“Oh… uh, sure.”
“Is your arm okay? No need to report it?”
“It’s fine. They said it’ll be okay after a few days. And I’m not reporting it.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because you hate the police, Ian. If I report it, the police will come looking for you too.”

Leo Sebastian widened his eyes, looking almost betrayed.

“I would never think of doing that. What do you take me for?”

Though he seemed a little hurt, Ian ignored it.

“Why did you want to meet?”

Leo Sebastian bit his lip.

“Do you… really not remember who I am?”
“No.”
“No way! How could you forget me? Are you kidding?”

Ian’s gaze grew cold.

“I don’t joke around like that. If that’s all you wanted to say, I’m leaving.”
“I…,”

Leo’s eyes filled with tears.

“You really… really forgot everything. Like everything else, you just forgot. Even about me.”

As the tears fell, Ian stared, feeling a small pang of guilt. His clear, earnest face, streaked with tears, might have been why he felt a twinge of remorse.

“Stop crying.”
“…Sniff… hic…”
“I tend to forget things easily. I’m sorry I don’t remember you. But I still came here, didn’t I? Because I wanted to talk to you.”
“Hic…”

When it didn’t seem he’d stop crying, Ian sighed and spoke firmly.

“If you keep crying, I’m leaving.”

Only then did the sobbing stop. Leo wiped his tears on his hand, then his sleeve, until Ian handed him a napkin. With a shy grin, he accepted it, his brown eyes wet but clear. Oddly enough, he seemed a bit endearing.

“Better now?”

Leo nodded, then pointed to the empty table, nodding his chin toward it.

“Didn’t order anything? Were you waiting for me?”
“You’re the one who wanted to meet.”

Leo opened his mouth wide, smiling soundlessly. His carefree grin made him look even younger.

“I’ll go order something.”

He went to the counter without even asking what Ian wanted, and Ian watched him. Chatting and smiling brightly with the female staff at the counter, he looked as innocent as a boy. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and a checkered wool scarf again today, a look that somehow suited him even though it seemed out of season.

As he glanced around idly, his gaze met Leo’s at the counter, who waved both arms exuberantly.

“Wait there! I’ll be right back!”

Other patrons looked back and forth between Ian and the counter, chuckling or murmuring. At this point, Ian had to admit it—Leo was the worst of the annoying people who tried to get close to him, simply because he was utterly unfazed by rejection.

A moment later, Leo returned with a tray, balancing two mugs with one arm. Ian watched him set down the tray, slightly tilting. Though he was meeting with Leo to get some answers, he still considered him another annoying person, showing no real concern for or pity toward him. Leo, on the other hand, offered him a steaming mug with a simple smile.

“Here, drink.”

It was hot chocolate, thick with cream and marshmallows instead of milk, just the way Ian liked it. Indeed, Leo knew him—far more than Ian had expected.

Staring into the mug in silence, Ian suddenly asked,

“What’s with that photo?”

Leo blinked.

“Call me Leo.”
“Answer me. When was that photo taken?”
“Call me by my name. You said you liked it.”
“What?”

Naturally, he didn’t remember that. He didn’t even see himself as the kind of person who would tell someone he liked their name. Leo blinked again, then looked intensely serious.

“Le-o. You said you liked it.”

There was no room for compromise in his tone, and Ian realized that his forgotten past might be more complicated than he’d thought. His expression turned cold. The Revenant’s pancakes, Leo Sebastian’s photo—more and more things he didn’t know were piling up.

“Fine, Leo. So what’s the story with that photo?”
“You really don’t remember, do you?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t be here meeting you. Where is that place? I’ve never seen it. And who are you?”

Leo’s bright eyes, so pure and innocent, darkened with sadness.

“I took that photo back when we lived together. You hated taking pictures, but for my birthday, I asked you to let me take just one. You said it wasn’t my birthday. So I tried to hack the DMV server to change my birth date… remember?”

Leo fished his wallet from his pocket, pulling out his ID.

“Since I failed, we just did this—see? I drew a four over the one with a pen.”
“…What?”

Leo’s story was utterly unfamiliar. His license, faded from lack of use, had no place in Ian’s memory.

“Lies.”

When Ian said this, Leo’s brown eyes filled with tears.

“No, it’s true.”
“Are you telling me I was that close to you? Lived with you?”

A tear slipped down, and without embarrassment, Leo wiped it away with the back of his hand.

“We were lovers.”
“What?”
“We were dating.”

That couldn’t be true. Up until yesterday, Ian Winchell was definitely not interested in men.

“Nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense!”

Leo started to sob openly.

“I even kissed you. You hated being touched by others, but you let me kiss you, on Christmas Eve. Said you didn’t have a present for me, and when I said it was too precious to use right away, you said there were a dozen, so I could use one each month until next Christmas.”

The more he listened, the more absurd it all sounded.

“Where did we supposedly live together?”

Coldly staring at the weeping Leo, Ian demanded an answer. It was all lies. There was no way memories of living with someone could be so completely erased. The man crying in front of him, appearing innocent as a child, was more likely a delusional stalker.

“Have you really forgotten everything? Don’t you remember me?”

Leo suddenly lunged forward, clutching Ian’s shirt. Ian coldly slapped his hand away.

“You want that arm broken for real?”
“Ian…”
“Just answer me. Where did we live together?”

Leo replied, sniffling.

“R-Rose-Hulman.”

If he was from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, they might have shared a dorm room.

“Were we roommates?”
“Yeah.”

Leo nodded eagerly, his wet eyes shimmering. Ian clicked his tongue. He remembered almost nothing about his brief time in college. Idiots constantly bothered him, and his memories were more about the hacking skills he obsessively learned. Then, something occurred to him.

“You said… you taught me everything I know about hacking. Was that true?”
“Yeah. I taught you everything.”

That, at least, he couldn’t dismiss as the delusion of a stalker. Leo was proficient with Ian’s hacking tools, handling them as if they were his own. The message method today also felt familiar yet foreign. He knew how to decipher Leo’s messages.

“Was that something you did… often?”
“You asked me to teach you hacking. You don’t remember that?”
“No. Me?”
“Yeah.”

Leo looked into his eyes, answering carefully.

“You ignored me every day at first… but once you learned I was a hacker, you asked me to teach you. I told you I’d only teach you if you dated me. And you agreed. From then on, we were together.”

Ian found himself chuckling.

There was no way such a ridiculous relationship could be real. His failure to remember it was irrelevant to him. Noticing the dismissive thoughts on Ian’s face, Leo pouted and mumbled grumpily.

“Don’t laugh. It wasn’t a joke. I was dead serious. We were really, truly together.”
“Oh, sure.”

As if.

“We even kissed with tongues. You said it was okay.”
“Right. I didn’t bite you, did I?”
“Well… at first…”

His eyes, momentarily downcast, regained confidence.

“Afterward, you were fine! You said you’d never bite again, and you really didn’t.”

Listening to Leo’s story, Ian couldn’t help feeling a bit pathetic.

No matter how much he wanted to learn hacking, he went through all that.

Ian was shocked at how different he’d been from who he was now, even though it was just a year ago. A chill settled in his chest.

“What on earth did I…”

What had he lost without realizing it?

An echo sounded in his head, not a hallucination but a memory, floating adrift in some forgotten part of his past.

Why are you so nice to me?
It’s because you want to sleep with me, right?
…Want to sleep with me?

Bang!

“Ian!”

When he came to his senses, a shattered mug lay on the floor, the dark liquid seeping around his feet. Around his oxford shoes, a ring of dark brown had formed.

Thicker and darker than water, the liquid reeked—a mix of fragrance, tang, and staleness.

It was blood. He recalled a memory of standing in a pool of blood.

“Ugh…”

Ian doubled over, unable to suppress the nausea. His body swayed, his vision darkening, feeling like he was sinking.

“Ian, Ian! Look at me! Are you okay? What’s happening?”

Leo pushed the table aside and pulled Ian into a hug. Though Ian reflexively tried to push him away, he had no strength left, allowing Leo to hold him.

“Ian! What’s wrong? Does your head hurt again? Should I call Dr. Hillen?”

Ian had no idea who Dr. Hillen was, but he didn’t ask.

Instead, he reached for Leo’s collar.

“If you really taught me… prove it.”
“Ian, Ian. Are you okay?”
“Did you hear me? Prove it.”
“Okay. How?”

Ian stared into Leo’s eyes, tears brimming in them. Reflected in those tears, his own face looked back at him. A vague sense of déjà vu overtook him. He’d seen this scene before. He’d once looked into Leo Sebastian’s tear-filled eyes like this.

Then, this wasn’t just an echo. In the past he’d forgotten, Ian Winchell had once told the Revenant Matthias, “Let’s sleep together.”

He had to find out who he was.

“Can you hack Immigration?”

Leo’s eyes widened, his gleaming like silver ornaments on a Christmas tree.