Jín’s POV:
“Mama, mama, can I press the button?”
“No, sweetie.” I hastily picked up my son, making sure he hadn’t touched anything on the giant panel board. This programming room was huge, and with all the screens and bright lights, it reminded me of the old days of my life.
Haru scrunched his small face in confusion, looking at all the flashing buttons. “Mama, what do the buttons do? What happens when I press them?”
“It could take you far away from here, away from Mama and Papa. You don’t want that, do you?” I stroked back his chin-length black hair, cupping it around his ears. I had hoped that was a good enough answer for him. Yet, five-year-old Haru didn’t answer, he just stared at me with the widest eyes. Those eyes, those dark brown eyes seemed to express anything without a word. They looked exactly like the eyes of my husband, Yuito. Our son had every trait possible from him, both were bright, intelligent, and curious about the world. I had always hoped Haru would grow up to be like him. In fact, this very building was where I had met Yuito, years ago. I was once an engineer for a company called Motoyo Inc., which was a corporation that programmed and developed video game simulations. Yutio was the son of the man who ran the company, and soon after his father’s passing he took over the position of owner. This had been my dream job since I was a little girl, and Yuito and I both worked on the same developing team. We had fallen in love and dated for years, until one day he had proposed to me. It felt like such a new start for me, after living in Osaka, Japan my whole life. I later moved to Tokyo to marry Yuito, which was where I found out I was pregnant. “A one bedroom apartment shouldn’t be too much trouble for just one child, right?” I had joked with him. It was just my luck we had twins, that was incredibly uncommon in Japan. One girl, and one boy, I had held them both in my arms, admiring them for what felt like forever. Yet, living in a cramped apartment with two identical babies was incredibly demanding. If my son wanted to be held, I had to make sure his sister wouldn’t cry. If one of them was sick, I had to make sure the other would stay healthy. “It comes with the territory of being a mother, I suppose.” Yuito had said. After thinking long and hard, I decided to resign my job working at Motoyo Inc, a full-time job while having twins was just too much continuous pressure. Yet, It was such a wonderful job to have had, and just this afternoon the twins and I had come to visit my husband on his lunch break. Yuito and I assumed that five was a mature enough age for them to come see their father’s work, but we had thought wrong apparently. My daughter, Millie, snapped me out of my thoughts. She knelt on the ground tugging at my long lavender colored dress. “Mama, can me and Haru play now, please? Pleaseeee?” Millie’s lips curled into a smile, which turned into a giggle. She had always been a smily cheerful little girl, her confidence had encouraged her twin brother to be a little more positive too. I reached down to brush her short hair, being careful not to drop her twin at the same time. “I’m sorry my love, but I don’t think we can play in here. There’s too many buttons you and your brother could accidentally push, this is a pretty big programming room.. But with little Haru here,” I laughed, adjusting myself for him to they his head on my shoulders. “I think he’ll just press all the buttons on purpose.” Millie was still stationed on the floor, fidgeting with her bright pink lunchbox. She had been so excited to bring lunch to her father today, but I could see the little patience she had left was starting to run out. “But Mamaaaaa, we haven’t even seen Papa yet!” She was right, I supposed. Yuito had texted me to meet him in Room 11 on level 3 of the building, which was where we were now. Yet, he seemed to be nowhere in sight. “Well, should we go look for Papa then?"
I was about to leave the room with Millie tagging along when Haru whimpered. “M-mama…” his head was still resting on my shoulder, facing the back of the room. “The buttons… you never told me where they’d take me… where would I go?”
I gulped. That would be hard to explain. “Look, Haru,” I said, placing him on the ground. I took one knee and knelt in front of him, holding his head in my hands. “You might be too young to understand this right now, but.. one of those buttons could take you to a different world. A world made up and designed by the engineers here, sweetie. They were made for the simple pleasure of entertainment, but some of those games are very dangerous. It’s not good for little boys like you to play them, okay?”
I could tell in the look of his eyes that Haru was trying to process all that I had said. “Okay… Mama.”
Thank goodness, I had hoped he wouldn’t ask more questions after that. “Let’s go find Papa now, okay?” I opened the door and let my children run out into the corridor outside the room, turning back one more time to stare at the programing chamber. One of the screens flashed the words ‘The Game of Tengoku’.
That video game. The one I had worked so diligently to make. Yet, it had been trashed, a simple prototype for years. This was the room where they threw all the extra simulation ideas away, hidden in program files. If the public wanted a new game, this was where engineers came for inspiration, to take old scraps and make them new and improved. I dismally sighed. “My life’s work.. I hope it can be played by any person if they desired one day.”
Yet, that was the past, and I am now a mother. There is no time for old hopes to return. “Some dreams just can never come true.” I whispered, as I slowly walked out into the corridor. I gently closed the door of Room 11, took the hands of my children, and never looked back.
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