.Hack//ZERO RE:1031

RE:1031

What kind of person was her father?

Junka had grown up not knowing anything about him.

But it wasn’t technically a secret, either.

Both Kyoko and Takie would answer Junka’s questions honestly when she asked.

But that didn’t change the fact that Junka knew next to nothing about her father – referred to only as ‘Mr. T’.

Her father’s full name was Junichiro Tokuoka.

He worked for a computer company.

Apparently, he met Kyoko when he was in a car accident and broke his leg.

Kyoko had been Tokuoka’s doctor.

Patients often brought in their computers and papers, took advantage of their private rooms, and refused to follow hospital procedure at all.

Tokuoka would leave his room unannounced on crutches without a care in the world.

He smoked in his hospital room and desperately tried to hide the traces of his cigarettes like a high school student. However, the smell would always give him away.

In a word, he was rather problematic.

Yet somehow, his private room became a hangout for all manner of patients.

Not only was he popular among the patients, but among the nurses as well.

Tokuoka – who wasn’t very handsome, and could go a few days before needing to shave – became the subject of rumors among the nurses, as he seemed to be a workaholic that earned quite a high salary.

One reason was that Tokuoka had an easy-going personality and a never-ending pool of things to talk about. And another was that he never berated or yelled at the nurses.

Many patients would use their injuries or illnesses as an excuse for rude behavior. Even if it was due to anxiety or pain, there were still those that simply took it too far. The nurses took the brunt of this abuse, being constantly exposed to the patients’ negative emotions.

Tokuoka was the only one who seemed to enjoy the inconvenience of being in the hospital.

Kyoko had a hard time dealing with Tokuoka as his doctor, but she didn’t have a bad impression of him as a person.

During his month-long stay at the hospital, Tokuoka deepened his understanding on the difference between plastic surgery and orthopedics, while teaching Kyoko about the possible dangers of online communities.

And when he was discharged from the hospital, they exchanged their e-mail addresses, promising to meet again.

From there, their relationship as doctor and patient soon developed into that of lovers.

Around that time, Kyoko began talking about Mr. T in her conversations with Takie.

Kyoko made fun of Tokuoka for wearing sandals in winter and being slightly overweight thanks to his lifestyle, even trying to forbid him from drinking canned coffee every day out of concern for his health.

Meanwhile, Tokuoka would refer to Kyoko as his ‘teacher’, claiming she was more daring and relaxed than he was, yet when they walked down the sidewalk together, he’d be the one casually standing on the side of the road.

They argued plenty over political situations and movies, but never discussed their tastes and proclivities.

Within three months of Tokuoka being released from the hospital, he and Kyoko had begun thinking about marriage.

However, Tokuoka stubbornly refused to hold a wedding ceremony, saying he was too embarrassed and didn’t want to be bound by tradition. He didn’t even give Kyoko an engagement ring.

Kyoko agreed, and Takie tolerated the decision with a forced smile.

Due to his busy schedule, however, Tokuoka only returned to Kyoko’s home in Mitaka a few times a month at the start of their marriage, and had a rented one-room apartment near the CC Corp. office that he walked to work from.

And as his workload grew, he began to spend even more time sleeping at the office, his only spare moments spent commuting between his apartment and office.

It could still work out as long as there was a sense of curiosity and newness in how they looked at their spouse.

However, marriage was supposed to be a daily routine, a way of life.

They were letting temporary excitement become ordinary, and discovery became common place.

Mediocrity and quiet times were necessary to allow those moments to truly shine.

But they had too little time and space to spend together for that to happen.

They didn’t even have enough time to get into a fight. The ideal would have been to forge a stronger bond like hammering iron into shape, but their reality was that the ingot they had was being left to cool without being worked on.

It was difficult for Tokuoka and Kyoko to find a way to reconcile their work lives to fit in with each other.

Kyoko had her patients, and Tokuoka had a game called Fragment to import.

Within a year, the two of them had to sit down with each other and rethink their way of life.

When they could get together, they expected too much from each other, and that led to them feeling discouraged.

If that was how it would be between them, then it was better for both of them if they returned to being strangers.

Some relationships could be maintained long-distance with enough effort.

But they were both in agreement.

In many ways, they were too similar. That had been what attracted them to each other, but in the end, it was also why they decided to break it off.

One had to be considerate of others, not just their own ego.

Or at the very least – one needed to trust their own instincts.

It was only after the divorce that Kyoko had discovered she was pregnant.

Was it lucky or unlucky? Either way, it was useless to think about it now.

Even after parting, the two sometimes contacted each other at least once or twice a month.

Kyoko knew that Tokuoka had become even busier than before, so she only gave him a cursory report about their child. She didn’t want to interrupt his work by talking about something depressing.

In return, Tokuoka inquired about Kyoko’s health and offered advice about her intent to recognize him for child support.

After a minimal amount of negotiation, Tokuoka’s position in regard to their unborn child was decided.

The name would be a combination of their own. He would provide a monthly remittance of ¥150,000. And he would have the right to visit her whenever he wanted.

Yet while those first two expectations were honored, the last right was never exercised.

And Kyoko had no time to complain about Tokuoka’s reluctance to visit his child.

Raising a child required so much time and effort. She had returned to work after three months of maternity leave as well, so Kyoko was even busier than before.

The stormy days passed, but it wasn’t until Junka started elementary school that Kyoko realized she hadn’t been in touch with Tokuoka in over half a year.

Perhaps that had been an opportunity. If Kyoko had allowed Tokuoka to meet up with Junka then, the relationship between the father and daughter might have been different.

But in the end, it was only after the entrance ceremony that Kyoko contacted him. She sent him a colored photo of Junka standing stiffly beside the school gate, and Tokuoka sent her a letter of congratulations in response.

The moment had passed quickly.

And the days continued unchanged.

To Junka, Tokuoka was her father only in concept.

She didn’t know what he looked like, and she had never once lived with him.

What was a father supposed to do? How was he supposed to act? What does he think about? Junka could only use her imagination based on what little she knew.

A fantasy of the perfect father. Or a vision of spite.

It wasn’t until she was in third grade that Junka learned her father worked as a programmer.

And that was when The World was first brought to Junka’s attention.

A game created by her father.

It was the first piece of her father that Junka had ever had.

Junka had been thrilled the first time she logged into The World.

But it could not meet Junka’s expectations.

In Junka’s fantasy, there should have been an existence there that held and guided her through everything. But instead, every turn in The World only brought Junka new opposition.

She was systematically rejected, humiliated, and devoured.

It would have been fine if she could have simply dismissed the PKing and stalking as ‘just part of the game’.

However, Junka was too emotionally invested in The World to do that.

The hurt she felt from her treatment in The World – to her – was no different than if it were happening in real life. Yet in contrast, it was not an issue she could fix in real life.

Junka became filled with disappointment and pain.

She wondered if she should have just stopped logging in.

But Junka naïvely clung to The World anyways. She was hooked on it.

She didn’t want to leave without being completely rejected by it – without being thoroughly crushed by it.

She wanted to be acknowledged.

She wanted him to know that she was here.

The father that was still little more than a figment of her imagination.

She gritted her teeth and fought back the pain as she once again landed in The World.

It wasn’t healthy for her to be putting her heart and soul into this game like she was.

After all, it was still just a game. There was nothing to be gained from it but a temporary sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

Junka had confused reality and the online world in the worst possible way.

There was no way to satisfy a real life need on the Internet.

It could only be obtained in reality.

And then she was PKed again.

For the first time, Junka had complained to Kyoko. She asked why Tokuoka would create a game that allowed people to kill each other.

Kyoko wasn’t familiar with the game, so she couldn’t give her a proper answer. And even if she could have, it would have done nothing to console Junka.

Maybe he thought it would be more interesting that way. Perhaps games were just like real life, where anything was possible. But she shouldn’t let it hurt her feelings. Instead, she should try to laugh the rude players off.

Anything she said would surely have sounded hollow.

Feeling desperate, Junka called CC Corp. directly and gave a scathing review.

But she was told that the employee named Junichiro Tokuoka was no longer with CC Corp.

Yet when Junka asked her mother again, Kyoko seemed puzzled. She didn’t seem to understand what Junka found so shocking about Tokuoka leaving the company.

Kyoko offered to get in touch with Tokuoka if she wanted to see him, but Junka shook her head.

It was too late now.

Junka had already reached her verdict.

Tokuoka had left the company just after completing the conversion for The World. And no one knew why.

His colleagues and subordinates were all surprised and dejected over it. Some even accused him of betrayal because of how much it had hurt to see him leave.

Tokuoka had not confided with anyone his reasons for leaving, he had only said that he was tired.

Whether Tokuoka quit after having finished his project or collapsed in the middle of his life’s work – no one could say. Passed the conversion itself, any future updates would have just been more work, and all of it would have necessitated Tokuoka’s presence.

But either way, the fact remained that when Junka logged into The World now, Tokuoka would not be there.

The piece of her father she’d believed she finally had was nothing but an illusion.

Junka was torn away from her online fantasy and thrust back into reality.

If Tokuoka had left The World behind, why then had he not returned to his family in the real world?

Kyoko had told Junka that Tokuoka was busy with work.

But as far as Junka knew, the reason Tokuoka had left and never visited was all because of his work on The World.

That had been why Junka tried to follow him into The World.

She had wanted to know and to love The World.

But her dream had been torn asunder.

Junka felt like she was drowning in a sea of emptiness and despair.

She struggled, fought back, and replaced her desire for connection with hatred.

The World was a load of garbage.

The World held no purpose.

The users happily enjoying their time in the game were completely different people from Junka.

They were all idiots. Each one just playing pretend.

She would show them. Show them all what a terrible world this really was.

Junka – Carl – wore a mask of ice.

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