Work Text:
{b e f o r e}
The curious scenery made him lost. It was all he knew. At the moment, his mind was nothing more than an oppressive silence constructed by his astonishment. And he couldn't ask for anyone's help about it. He was alone like he wanted from the start. It was late to feel regretful.
She wouldn't hear him. She, that didn't even need to play one note of the piano, to give him the little motivation he needed to live his life beyond what was lost. Her voice was enough.
But that night, everything that had been surrounding him wasn't nightmares or disappointment with himself, only water.
He was drowning and drowning. And then what would still matter?
However, he feared. He didn't need that kind of life he had when he agreed with Kirumi's request. But, in the end, he tried to fight back. Kaede's voice and words indeed made some effect on him. Because he was thinking about he could still do something in that world of theirs. Maybe, he wasn't sure. But his body made his move by itself. However, it was late.
{a w a k e n i n g}
He was breathless. Even if he managed to wake up again when he thought everything was over.
Indeed, everything was over because it was all a lie.
The blood in his hands, the love that he felt for his ex-girlfriend, his whole backstory, weren't exceptions for that lie.
But the void that had glued in his bones wouldn't be a fabrication. He had felt it so real in his skin.
When he decided to participate in that kind of program, what was he thinking to join it? Was it to everyone laugh about the worthless efforts to become friends of his classmates and himself?
It was all fake in the end. Maybe there was some writer too there messing with his life like it wasn't enough. And they thought that it would be more entertaining to make him gain a reason to live when he didn't have anything in the first place.
Again, it was a loop of laughable effort.
However, at least in all that discomfort, little by little, he had remembered his old self. In the lie, he had played the tennis he wanted but refrained in do it before.
He still was feeling more numb than he thought he would be. A bad taste was in his mouth, and he let a heavy sigh leave his lips.
A girl appeared in his vision, and he couldn't believe who she was. Her tired smile wasn't the right one to be in her face, even if she tried her best to seem strong. She seemed to read his mind, or it was that obvious because she tried to laugh, failing in it. She gave up on it not long after but still extended her hand to his side, as his life needed. And maybe that wasn't a lie too.
So she said to him with her reddened cheeks, embarrassed:
"Welcome back."