[The living room was modern, bordering on detached. Outside the wall-length windows was a perpetual night, a sky littered with shining stars, constellations that would be named by the phantom images of two people at the poolside. One of them was likely to be recognizable despite the phantom-like nature of her profile, Nariko's black hair was just as thick and long in the half-memory as it was in real life, after all. But the person beside her, and the man who stood in front of Les were less familiar, the version outside was younger, but they were the same.]

Huh.

[His eyes were blue, the freckles along the bridge of his nose shifted as his expression scrunched, and he seemed to realize where they were.]

Oh, this is - fuck. [The living room. The sky. The memory. And a woman he'd never seen before.]

I was about to say, that's one hell of a change from what I saw last time, but you're definitely not Nariko. Right?

[That wasn't the sort of thing that should be a question but here they were, just the same.]