kscans

Chapter 431 - To Your Side

Some time after my 'talk' with Natsume-san, I was once again indebted to Chitose-san for a ride back to my apartment. I sat on the living room sofa, my mind blank.

Click, click—without making any such sound, the second hand of the wall clock swept smoothly and silently. I watched it go around, repeatedly picturing the upcoming scene, playing it out in my mind, and judging my own performance.

No matter how many times I simulated it, no matter how many times I changed the words and replayed the scene, I couldn't see a future where things went smoothly. I was truly at a loss.

To say this was not like me… would be wrong. This was who I really was. No matter how much I polished my exterior, my core self would never change.

Still, I'm sure it's not that I can 'never change.'

For every bit I struggle, whether I move forward, sideways, or backward—as long as my flailing feet land somewhere, even just a little bit.

The view is bound to change.

—'In thirty minutes.'

Seeing the simple message pop up on my vibrating phone, I pushed myself up from the sofa. My legs should have felt heavy… but at the same time, they felt strangely light.

I left the living room, walked down the hall, and entered the bedroom, where two beds greeted me.

Between the two, I approached the mechanical ark. As I did, a barely-there, whisper-faint operating noise hummed to life, a sound that I sometimes thought existed for the sole purpose of 'informing its master of activation.'

I laid my body down in the VR machine, a device my mind and body were now completely accustomed to, and watched the string of glowing characters appear on the closed canopy.

—Ready—

—Stand by—

"Drive On."

I whispered the startup key, a phrase now familiar on my tongue.

◇◆◇◆◇

That brief window of time after getting home from school and before starting to prepare dinner.

Even though it meant the hassle of logging out once, diving into Arcadia had become second nature—all because there was someone I wanted to see.

Because while I was looking at his face, while I was standing by his side, I was able to be myself, and no one else.

When did that become the past tense?

When was it that I created a 'me' that was neither the 'me' I wanted to look away from nor the 'me' who was nobody at all… but a 'me' so tightly bound by my own suppressed emotions that I could barely breathe?

It's not that my feet are growing distant from the virtual world. I can't let that happen.

I still haven't grasped a single one of the reasons I threw myself into that world. Far from grasping, not even a fragment or a trace has so much as grazed my fingertips.

I was lost from the start, with no destination in sight.

That's why I clung to the dazzling 'innocence' I met that day.

As a guidepost, as a sanctuary, as a bonfire to illuminate my place in the world—I relied on him, depended on him, even though I knew an outcome like this was only a matter of time.

I couldn't look away, not for a moment.

I was transfixed by his brilliance, always.

Helplessly, strangely, to a frightening degree, we reached out to each other without any resistance or hesitation.

And that's why I stopped. I froze, unable to move.

'He' is the same as me—so, he's different.

One after another, the unknown, the surprises, the confusion… and probably, the aversion, all bubbled up. Faced with all that, he never stopped.

No matter what anyone said, no matter what he himself thought, I alone saw his 'progress.' I never missed it; it was clearly reflected in my eyes.

He never, ever stops. Even if he gets lost, even if he meanders, even if he sometimes retreats, the one thing he will never do is stop moving.

Even when he complains, even when he looks down, even when he looks up at the heavens, unable to bear his self-loathing, he's always searching in his heart for 'what to do.'

He doesn't give up on the effort to change, even if he can't change right away.

We are the 'same' in our reluctance to let others in… to let ourselves in. And yet, in that crucial aspect, he and I are completely 'different.'

I don't want to be apart, but I want to be apart.

I want to touch him, but I can't.

I don't want to hear his voice, but I want him to call my name.

I want to see his smile, but I don't want to see the smiles he gives to someone else.

"…………What should I do?"

I already know the answer to that.

I've known what I should do from the very beginning. The only reason I can't, the only reason I'm frozen, the only reason I'm selfishly hiding myself away is—

"…Drive On."

The self-deception of the hopelessly cowardly, pitiful Sora Yotsuya.

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To be written.