Kiana immediately bent down, bringing her face almost right next to the boy's, meticulously examining the young man engrossed in his drawing.
"It's him?" She looked up, confirming dumbly.
The girl nodded.
"That's not right..." But Kiana shook her head, her expression serious. "I remember what that guy looks like. He's kinda good-looking, but not this handsome! Definitely not this handsome!"
"...It is him, but this is just a memory fragment," the girl replied, sounding slightly exasperated. "And how people remember themselves..."
She sighed, reaching a hand towards Kiana's ear. "May I extract a small fragment of your memory? Unlike [Him], I can only access your memories with your permission..."
Kiana paused, thought for a moment, and nodded.
Fortunately, Kiana wasn't the type to agree verbally while disagreeing internally. The girl's finger tapped lightly on Kiana's temple, easily pulling out a gray-white thread. It looked somewhat like mist...
Kiana watched curiously as the extracted wisp transformed shortly after leaving her, becoming an incredibly vibrant rose. Then, the girl unfolded the rose.
["Hey, beautiful Senpai, interested in joining this young lady for dinner?"]
A perfectly deep, bubbly voice echoed in her ear. Kiana was instantly hit with goosebumps from the somewhat familiar yet strange voice.
"Eeeew—!" Kiana hugged herself. "Who is that?! The voice is nice, but those words are so greasy!!"
The girl silently unfolded the latter half of the memory.
A heavily filtered, stylistically distorted 'Kiana', radiating an air of unknowable artistic atmosphere, appeared holding a rose in her mouth.
Kiana fell silent.
"See? This is what most human self-memory fragments look like..." the girl commented wearily.
Kiana: "..."
So this is what narcissism looks like...
"Then... then how do I find the person I'm looking for?" Thankfully, Kiana hadn't forgotten her main objective, though bringing it up now felt slightly like trying to change the subject.
"We've already entered the memory of the person you seek. Now we can rely on [Association] to jump between memory fragments and find his most important memory. He's hiding there now."
"How do we jump?" Kiana asked quickly.
The girl spread her hands. "As long as we can find the thing that left the deepest impression on the memory owner within this memory, we can trigger [Association] and complete the [Jump]."
Deepest impression...
Kiana put her little brain to work, her gaze gradually settling on the drawing taking shape under the young man's pen. It was the same drawing Kiana had seen before entering this space – an anime-style girl. The sketch was done, and he was now meticulously inking the lines.
That should be it... Didn't De... uh, Miss German Shepherd say earlier that this boy was very focused?
Who's a German Shepherd...
After some consideration, Kiana reached her hand towards the drawing.
"Sorry, sorry, I really need to find..." Just as she was about to apologize while snatching the sketchbook, another hand – wrinkled, calloused, looking somewhat worn by time – suddenly reached over and grabbed the notebook away.
Both Kiana and the young man jumped in fright. Kiana instinctively took several steps back, pressing herself against the wall, not daring to breathe loudly.
The young man, meanwhile, clutched frantically at his notebook, looking up in terror at the person who had snatched it.
"Give it here!!" It was a somewhat aged woman, dressed in a simple skirt. She wasn't particularly well-built or beautiful; her face, neglected, already showed fine wrinkles.
Her eyes practically blazed with fury. Seeing the boy still desperately holding onto the notebook, she grew even angrier, yanking harder.
"I said, give it here!!"
Seemingly pained for his notebook, the boy subconsciously loosened his grip, letting the sketchbook fall into the woman's hands.
Flipping rapidly through the pages, the woman's chest began to heave violently.
Her hands gripped both ends of the notebook. The boy's eyes widened in terror.
The woman's hands trembled for a long time before slowly relaxing. A faint tear had appeared on the notebook's binding.
Tossing the notebook onto the bed, the woman raised her hand towards the boy and slapped him hard across the head.
"Are you trying to kill me with anger?!!" the woman yelled, her voice thick not just with rage, but also deep-seated grievance and a choked sob. "What time is it, and you're still messing with this useless stuff! You really are a piece of sh—"
The boy quickly dropped the sharp pencil, covered his head, and endured the scolding without a word.
The woman's words were harsh, laced with curses, sharp and piercing, yet the underlying hurt couldn't be ignored.
"All day long, you just fiddle with this stuff! What else can you do?! Huh?! What else are you good for!!"
After hitting him several times, the woman grabbed the boy's ear, dragging him in front of her.
This time, perhaps feeling his pride wounded, or perhaps genuinely hurt by the rough action, the boy reflexively slapped her hand away.
But as he looked up, about to finally say something, he saw the woman's eyes, which had been brimming with tears for some time now, and the words died in his throat.
"Are... are you okay..." Finally, he lowered his head and asked softly.
Kiana, watching from the side, saw clearly that the woman's tears had started after the first blow; they weren't because of the boy's action.
"Are you trying to hit me?!" the woman screamed, almost hysterically. "Are you trying to beat your mother to death!!"
"I wasn't!" the boy replied urgently.
"Even if you weren't trying to beat me, you're trying to kill me with anger!! I work myself to the bone outside earning your tuition, earning money for your tutoring classes, and you waste my money drawing this!!"
The woman instinctively reached for the sketchbook again but stopped herself, grabbing a blank notebook instead and throwing it at the boy, crying out, "Then draw! Go on, draw!! Draw until you drop dead!!"
"I'll watch you draw! Don't you dare sleep! I won't sleep either! I'll stay right here and watch you draw!!"
The boy remained silent, head bowed, quietly enduring the tirade and tearful accusations that lasted for over half an hour.
Kiana stood nearby, silently listening to every word, clearly seeing every flicker of suppressed anger, pain, and grievance on the boy's face.