Chapter 24: Wonderland
Rating: T

Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick.

Makoto stared upwards at the clock mounted on the wall, the ticking biting at the reserves of his sanity. It's almost ten o'clock at night, and there is no place that Makoto would rather be than away from here.

The brunette grumbles his way through worksheets, trying not to gag on the smell of old books. A musky smell permeated his space- like there were fungus growing between the bound pages- he would never for the life of him understand why Touko or Hifumi enjoyed a place like this. It was so… gross. It was almost overwhelming- the stench drew his attention and held it tightly. He could barely even focus on the desk in front of him.

He pushes his books away and stretches, arching his back over the chair. "Ugh, I'll never get this done," He groans before standing up. Makoto stares at the page, not even half of the questions answered. His leg knocked against his rotted wood chair, half-asleep from lack of use. One thing was for sure- he needed a break from the math, or else he might explode.

Yawning, Makoto begins to pace. Around and around and around and around, Step step step step step step step on the soft, gaudy old carpet, small indents where his sneakers had been. He glances down at the rug- an array of squares and rectangles in all sorts of beiges and mahoganies and greys and creams. The splash of red on his shoes are almost like blood, squelching stains on the disorienting design.

His head spins a bit from the pattern. He yelps and stumbles to the side, almost tipping over.

As he manages to catch himself on his chair, a soft giggling draws his attention. It floated through the air, dancing on pixie dust and beckoning for him like a siren's coo. He unfurls to his full height, back staunch as a girl steps past a few bookcases, black-rimmed glasses glowing with the snug light of a salt crystal lamp. He recognizes her- they go to the same school. Same class, even, but he'd never spoken a day to her in her life.

But it was tough to forget a face like hers, "Maizono-san?"

He feels himself burn up, remembering his awkward collapse into the chair, and it's evident that Sayaka is reminiscing about the same thing, still giggling the same tinkerbell giggle as before. As Maizono stops, she smiles at him, and his anxiety wanes.

"That'd be me. Are you alright, Naegi-kun?"

'She knows my name.' He shoves away the inside voice."I'm fine! Fine," His voice cracks. "I didn't expect you to be here, Maizono-san."

"And neither did I. You seemed like the kind of person who would have their work done on time. Neat and organized."

Makoto's ears burn bright again."I… I've been dragged around by everyone else in the class. Asahina-san and Kuwata-kun pester me to go out all the time. Fujisaki-kun wants me to help test his artificial intelligence, Ludenberg-san keeps challenging me to games, Enoshima-san…" He shudders. "Well, the less said about her, the better. I haven't had much time to do the homework."

The smile gracing Sayaka's lips vanish and a pensive look appears in its place. She pushes on the rim of her glasses.

"I'm sorry to hear that," The look vanishes when she giggles again. "Still, I'm surprised. You're quite modest for someone so popular."

"Eheh, it's nothing. Honestly, I'm just sort of everyone's… pack mule. Or sidekick. Or experiment. Whatever works best at the time. I'm not… uh, popular because of personality, or looks, or whatever, you know?"

"Oh? If that's how you see it, I suppose."

He frowns. "What kind of a cryptic answer is that?" He asks, but one look at the grin on her face and he knows the answer is gone. Locked, deep within the mind of the bespectacled girl, far beyond where he could reach. Maybe one day he would get the answer.

Makoto rolls his eyes, instead. "So, uh, Maizono-san… what are you doing at the library this late, anyway?"

"I could ask you the same thing. Not many people stay at the library until midnight, you know."

"I was… wait, wait, hold on, midnight? It's only ten o' clock."

The pixie girl furrows her brow. "I'm sorry? That can't be right; I checked my phone two minutes ago. It definitely said eleven-fifty-two."

They stared at each other, completely flummoxed. Blue crystals shimmer in her irises. His had long ago dulled and faded. "When did you check the time last, Naegi-kun?"

"Two minutes ago, too. I just got up from my homework, and I checked the clock on that wall," He points at an old, cream-coloured wallpaper wall, the clock still softly ticking.

Sayaka's mouth curls, and she laughs. "Oh! That clock is old. It hardly ever runs on time."

Ah. "I see," He says. Blinks. "Then why do they still have it up there?"

"Oh, people enjoy the ticking sound. I think it's quite soothing myself."

Makoto squints at the clock, counting one-one thousand two one thousand three one thousand 'holy shit, it is slow.' He shook his head. "Really? That's the reason? Are you sure?"

"Very sure," She says, taking a few steps towards it. Makoto eyes the book in her hand, balanced against her back. Agatha Christie. The Clocks. She stops in place. "Well…"

The hesitation is enough for him to pounce. "Well? So there is another reason!" He exclaims.

"Shh."

"Ah, right," He feels that familiar warm glow in his chest and face as she turns back to face him. "But… there's another reason! You said as much yourself!"

"I didn't say that-"

"You implied it. That's good enough for me," His dull eyes caught the barest sheen. "So? What is it?"

He can see the battle waged inside her mind. Tell him, or not? Her brow furrows again, before the war ends and a victor is decided. She sighs. "You'll have to keep this secret."

His grin could put the sun back in the sky.

They cross through the small study area, past that mildew-y smell and his now-forgotten trigonometry, over hoops and past bends. Makoto stares at the clock face, charcoal black hands dutifully telling a time that happened hours ago. Sayaka pulls at a ladder nearby, slanting it against the bookshelf directly underneath the clock. She steps on the first rickety rung and the entire structure wobbles.

"Is… is that safe?"

"Of course it is," The ladder croaks out a death rattle.

She reaches for the clock, fingers prying at the edge, and she pulls at it. The wallpaper begins to groan and crackle. Makoto frowns, watching as the bespectacled girl tugs and heaves and shoves at the clock, more and more of the off-beige cheap wallpaper ripping away from the wall and-

Maizono isn't there anymore.

He blinks and the girl in front of him vanishes. Gone with the wind, the faint smell of blueberries wafting through the air.

His eyes bulge out of their sockets, irises pinprick beads in a sea of dull metal olivine. "Holy shit."

The clock rests on a hinge- squeaking from disuse. Behind it rests a hole, no larger than five centimeters in diameter, yet somehow filled to the brim with darkness. A shade so black that it made his jacket look like a warm grey. He looked at it and felt a chill to his bone, because he somehow, inexplicably knew that she had disappeared through it. Down the rabbit's hole, with no late white rabbit.

Makoto stares at the cavity, conflicted. Was he prepared to see what was on the other side of the hole? Once he climbed that ladder, there was no going back-

'I think I'm starting to lose my mind.' He thinks to himself. After all, it's just a small, hole! He could barely fit a pencil inside of the depression. There was no way Sayaka disappeared into the hole. Absolutely no way! In fact, how did she know his name in the first place? They hadn't even spoken to each other before! Maybe Sayaka herself was a hallucination- proof that he needed to get out of the library and go home.

Yeah, that had to be it. It had to be, there was no other explanation! Everything was perfectly normal and natural. There was nothing abnormal about the hole. Makoto needed to go to sleep.

He turns around, stares at the small pit in the wall. The smell floats on rotten, pungent oak and acrid water. Makoto inhaled deeply. The smoke burned his lungs.

"You made it."

Sayaka's voice was flat. Unsurprised. Makoto stares at her through olivine looking glasses. His mind scrambled and rolled, circuits buzzing with static.

"What the fuck?" He spat out.

The girl adjusted her glasses, smile playing on her lips. He strains to make it out from beneath the shadows, "Welcome to the Book Graveyard."

Makoto turns to peer out into the horizon; at crumbling tombs, stark against the cerulean night sky. The earth crumbled around his feet, and he kicked up dust as he strode along, his fingers running over every cool slab of stone within his reach, "The… book graveyard?"

"Where all books go to die," She nods. "Or at least, before I rescue them. Give them a home."

Makoto looks at her hands. The Clocks is gone, "So… What happens to them?"

"Would you like to see for yourself?"

Sayaka walks up to a grave and traces the letters stenciled into the granite. The same blueberry smell wafts in the air, and he closes his eyes to inhale.

He opens them, and he's perched atop a roof, old and incomplete. Thunder rattled the shingles and lightning illuminated the dark steel blue sky through the cracks of the skyscrapers towering above the clouds. The wind screams and whines at him, forcing him to draw his jacket tighter around him.

"Where are we?!" Makoto has to fight the scream of the wind and the crackle of the storm, words ripped from his chest. Sayaka sneers out into the stormy night.

"James Ellroy!" She responds, tone evenly pitched. He marvels at her voice- so… refined! Controlled! Exquisite! It came easier to her than breathing. "The Black Dahlia. A part of the L.A. Quartet! Not exactly a nice, welcoming setting!" She admits, staring down towards the asphalt streets. "But it's quite beautiful."

Lightning strikes a large, needle-like structure in the distance, painting the sky a grey-lavender hue for a split second, "I'll respectfully disagree!" Makoto says, arms wrapped around an iron rung protruding from the roof. The bespectacled girl giggles, her airy laugh riding the wind.

"Hey! What are you two doing up here?!"

He looks behind him- a door flung open, and a flashlight beam shining on his face. "Come here! It's not safe up here!"

Makoto looks back at Sayaka, the girl standing rigid in the howling wind. She didn't move a muscle, and her face was obscure. "Hey! You! Girl! Get down from there!"

He barely hears her voice, ethereal in its silence. "Makoto, follow me!"

"What?!"

And then she disappears.

Makoto screams as she leaps off the roof, ink-hued hair whipping behind her as she vanishes into the night. Quickly, he pries himself loose from the rebar and throws himself after her. "HEY!" screamed after him as he flies. The wind feels frigid on his nose. Warm firefly streetlamps get closer, and his dulled eyes wide as the stone brick road rushed towards him-

He lands on another rooftop and the wind is almost knocked from his lungs. He rolls over damp shingles before he comes out to a stop.

"Are you okay?!" Sayaka's voice echoes in the distance. He grits away the pain, searing through his limbs. He gasps for air.

"I'm alright!" He shouts back, pushing himself to his hands and knees. Sayaka stands, on the lip of the next building's roof.

"Come on!" She says. He runs, faster than he ever had before, chasing after the girl far ahead of him. He sprints, and sprints and sprints and sprints.

At the end of the building, he watches as Sayaka disappears off the edge of the building. "SAYAKA!" He shouts and, with another burst of strength, he flings himself off the building.

Too late did he realize it was a horrible idea. "Awful, awful, awful awful awful," he thought. The cool wind blows in his face, his heart thrums with butterflies. He screams as the stone brick road rushes to meet him-

"It's okay. Thank you."

The waitress turns to leave the duo behind, soft jazz music playing in the background. Once the two were relatively left alone, she whirls on him, "That was dangerous!" She admonishes, fuming. "I understand we're in a confusing location, and you may be experiencing a little bit of sensory overload, and maybe that chase was a tad too exhilarating, but that doesn't mean that you can go throwing yourself off of a building!"

Makoto's laugh sounds like an anxious warble. "Sorry, sorry. It's just… I didn't see you land on the balcony. I thought you just jumped to your death, or something," His reasoning sounds pitiful, even to him, but her features soften.

"Of all the…" She sighs, "Then I suppose I should apologize too."

"What? No, no, no, you don't need to. It was my fault, anyway."

"Enough, Naegi-kun. It's the truth. I was a bit too… excited. I forgot you were even here, for a moment, if I have to admit."

'Ouch.' The boy's dead green-grey eyes winced, "I don't blame you. I mean… it's not every day that I jump straight into a book world."

Her own eyes shimmer, "Ah, that's not quite what we're doing here."

"Oh? Then what are we doing?"

"Well, to put it simply…We're in a construct. A mental creation of one of our own subconscious'- something more powerful than anything we could even fathom- and given life through the Book Graveyard. This one is mine. I just finished The Black Dahlia, you see. I wanted to envision it for real. Touch it with my own hands. I'm certain we could find a construct from your mind too, if we go back."

"No! No, it's fine," He says, "I doubt we'll find anything exciting rolling around in my mind anyway."

She frowns, "You should have more confidence in yourself."

"Ah... uh, yeah."

She turns to look out the window of the diner, beads of water pelting the glass. Thump thump thump thump thump. Only the dim hum of the light dared roar in weak protest.

He coughs, "…So, what is this book about? What was it again? The Black, uh…"

"Dahlia," She completes, "The Black Dahlia. It's a noir book. About a famous murder in the United States- they never caught the killer, so James Ellroy, the author, decided to write a somewhat fake story around the murder, and- ah," She taps the frame of her glasses, brow furrowed, "I'm rambling, I'm sorry."

"Oh, no, no, no! It's fine," He says, trying not to kill the spark in her eyes. "This place is..." Many words shot through his mind. Confusing? Paradoxical? Intrinsically incorrect? "Fantastical. I can't believe it. A world, created out of our own minds? Behind an old, slow wall clock in the public library of all places? It's crazy."

Her gaze lowers. "Not that it's a bad thing!" He rushes, "Crazy in a good way. Breathtaking, even."

The sky screams in disagreement, a particularly loud crackle of thunder startling the boy. He yelps, standing to his feet as the rain starts pelting the windows harder. Sayaka snorts.

"Beautiful words," His ears turn bright red, "But… thank you. I'm glad someone else can see this place's beauty."

Lightning illuminates the sky again. Makoto's stomach snarls, daring the thunder or the old, flickering lights to roar louder. Sayaka giggles and Makoto thinks, "It's the same laugh. The same windchime laugh."

"Can I get you two anything to eat?" A waitress asks. Sayaka looks up before he can say anything.

"We're okay, thanks," She says, and the waitress disappears again. He stares at the shimmering image of the woman as it fades. "Mental construct. Remember?" She explains, and Makoto mutters an acknowledgement.

"It's a shame you don't know the book," Sayaka says, twirling a lock of hair. "It's enamoring, the way it's written. Vivid. That's why this construct feels so complete. I think you'd like it."

"Because the author wrote well?"

"Precisely."

"W-well, I didn't read it, but it definitely feels real," He laughs, running his fingers up and down his arms.

"A bit too real, perhaps. Are you okay? You're shivering."

Makoto almost argues, "No, I'm perfectly okay" before he realizes that she's right. He didn't even notice his teeth chattering, or his skin starting to burn from the hypothermia. He draws himself closer together, shaking like a wind-up toy. "I'm okay," He murmurs.

"No, you're not," She stands up from the restaurant booth. "Come on. Let's move to another world. Maybe something a bit warmer."

As Makoto protests, she walks to the diner's door and wrenches it open.

The Book Graveyard waits on the other side.

She walks through, and he's not very far behind.

"Um, excuse me?"

The desk's temperature is the first thing that hits him in the morning- it's ridiculously cold. Frigid. As he wades through murky dreams and a splitting headache, he hears the voice again. "Wake up! Hello?"

"Mmnn," He argues, mouth still frozen shut as he fights off the welcoming embrace of sleep. The voice giggles, and Makoto dreams of a windchime. "Honestly, Naegi-kun, you're that tired? We only visited a few constructs in the world tonight-"

He shot up out of his chair. The girl beside him screams.

"Ah, my bad," He apologizes once she's calmed down, his ears burning bright red. He feels a piece of paper- his maths worksheet from the night before- peel from his face and float to the ground, "Are you alright?"

"Yes, you, um, surprised me. I didn't expect someone to fall asleep in the library. How about you?"

"I'm fine, yeah. Thank you, though-"

Sayaka smiles at him, and he frowns. "Oh, haha."

"I'm surprised you slept through entire night- I thought a member of staff would have woken you up and sent you back home. Sleeping like that isn't healthy, you know."

"I don't think I could've slept anyway. Last night was… an adventure, to say the least,"

The girl looks confused. "I'm sorry?"

"You know. The whole Graveyard thing. Mental constructs, leaping into books, all that. We went through at least ten of them last night, didn't we?"

Sayaka frowns and, as she struggles for words, Makoto stares at her face. She wasn't wearing her glasses. She notices him staring, and he averts his eyes, "Um… I'm not sure what you're talking about, I'm sorry. What was your name again?"

The question hits him like a sack of bricks- did she forget? How on earth did she?- but he manages a response. "Um… Naegi. Makoto Naegi,"

"Ah!" Her eyes light up. "Do you go to school at Hope's Peak?"

His confusion piles on top of itself, and he struggles more to answer a question he didn't think he would need to, "Yeah. We… we're in the same class. 2-A."

"Oh, really?! I'm so sorry!" She bows her head. "There are so many people in our class, and I haven't really talked to everyone, and-"

She stops when she hears him laugh, few notes of hysteria blended into his jauntiness. She pouts, and he manages to contain himself.

"Ah, sorry, sorry! It's alright. I just remembered something funny. It's okay that you didn't remember me, Maizono-san," He says, and he can almost believe his own words.

Almost.

The pout disappears from her face, "Well, if you say so…"

She trails off into silence. Suffocating silence. With no air in his lungs, Makoto decides to leave. "Well, I should be going. I don't want to worry my family on a Saturday morning when they find out I didn't get home last night," He says, worksheets already stuffed into his bag.

"O-oh. Well… okay, then."

Makoto's smile is sad. Longing. He slings the backpack over his shoulders and looks up at the clock. His shiny, glassy olivine eyes stare as the slow oak clock ticks its life away.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Ten o'clock in the morning. He turns back to the girl. "Maizono-san?"

"Yes?"

"What time is it?"

She fumbles for her phone. "Um, ten AM. Why?"

"Ah, it's nothing. I'll see you in class."

And like a ghost, he walks out of the library. Through rotten oak bookshelves and musty old pages, cream wallpaper and poorly designed rugs. Through that musky, peat-moss smell, and cool thrum of the air conditioner, he ventured out back into the world; last night nothing but a dream. His overactive imagination had created a fantasy yet again.

From: Sayaka Maizono (popStarr)
To: Makoto Naegi (luckOthedevil)
Re: The Book Graveyard

I remembered. I'm sorry. I wasn't dreaming. You weren't dreaming. The graveyard is real. Last night was real. I swear.

Would you like to come back? It's always open. Just for you.

So, it took a broken leg but I'm back. It's a nasty break, but I'll survive.
oh yeah and I am now in university, because I obviously needed to curb my writing enthusiasm a tad.
this is a vague-ish AU? I've been trying to reinvent my view on these two lovely idiots and try and write them more satisfyingly. I apologise if this was a bit too slow, but a lot of this was me trying to redefine how these two fit together, and writing how they would interact. I hope it was interesting enough.
It's a bit unrealistic that Sayaka would prefer famous English novels than, say, Osamu Dazai or Ryuunosuke Akutagawa, but just bear with me- I have zero experience with eastern authors.
The chapter is shorter than usual, but thats because anything else I would write felt like it bloated the story. I'd rather not have it drag on.
That's all for now. I'll see you all soon, I hope.
Ciao!
wonderland
: an imaginary place of delicate beauty or magical charm