Page 131 of Mercy Written in Blood

"Why them?"

Renji looked around the apartment. At the books given by people who believed he would grow old beside them. At the record composed by someone who had never heard his own work performed by an orchestra. At the lacquered box belonging to a woman who once accused Renji of treating grief like an illness he could cure through discipline. He had not kept everything. Only what remained when memory threatened to become uncertain.

"To remember correctly," he said.

Haruki became very still.

"That matters to you."

"Yes."

"Being remembered correctly?"

Renji had not considered the reversal.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I will not be."

The answer settled into the room. Haruki's eyes sharpened. Renji reached for his cup of water. He had said too much.

"You sound very certain."

"Most people are remembered according to what others require them to have been."

"Then tell someone the truth."

"Truth does not guarantee accuracy."

"No. But silence guarantees they'll invent it."

Renji looked at him. Haruki rested one arm along the table.

"What would people invent about you?" he asked.

"That I was devoted to my work."

"You are."

"That I was private."

"You are."

"That I had little interest in anything beyond medicine."

Haruki glanced towards the records.

"The apartment disproves that."

"Only if someone sees it."

"I have."

The words were soft. Renji felt them more than he heard them. Haruki looked around the room again, but differently now. Not examining. Witnessing. Renji had not realised there was a distinction.

"You have good taste in music," Haruki said.