It's been a week.
Meanwhile I was successfully invited to a karaoke party.
Of course I went.
Even though there were quite a few who wanted to take advantage of my current social standing and try to approach Minami or Hina.
I wore a mask her, albeit a thin one.
This is because a few of the girls here might be experienced in wearing fake masks too, and heavy ones at that.
Hence a mask would pretty much be seen by them.
I also feel the need to start getting true to myself and not take other's bullshit.
This is to establish a personality and not be wishy-washy.
This allows me to build integrity which I so dearly lack at the moment.
Future moves might be risky and I would probably do sneaky things in the dark if something goes wrong, so to shield my self I need to keep the persona everyone sees as a bright one.
Kind of like Gotham City having Harvey Dent as a White Knight to Batman being the Dark Knight.
.
During the night, I still went to the river bank.
So did Tachibana.
We didn't talk either since that day but it wasn't awkward in the slightest.
It felt like grandma and grandpa sitting out in the veranda peacefully staring at the stars after having an argument about who ate more chocolate cake, which is odd.
I don't know how the atmosphere turned into that but I had other issues to deal with so I left it alone.
But anyways, before I could go for another outing, something massive happened.
The thing i was intuiting to happen happened.
And it didn't follow my ideas in the very fucking slightest.
✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏
It was morning before class.
No one arrived yet and I was early like usual.
I was looking at my phone.
I had received a message from multiple of my contacts.
They were all saying the same thing.
[Our school's Yamato Nadeshiko has been engaged to someone *picture*]
My breath was caught.
I didn't know how to react.
I couldn't comprehend the situation.
This...
Never in a hundred years would I think such a terrible joke could be played on me.
I was barely holding on to reality by following the story, but now it has ended?
It wasn't like the dude looked bad either.
I'd suggest he was more protagonist-like than Yukishiro.
The class suddenly felt suffocating.
I started to have trouble breathing.
I had to leave class.
I had to leave before I suffocated here.
I grabbed my bad and ran out of the class.
I was in the hallway.
But still it was hard to breathe.
I hurriedly picked my shoes from the rack and ran out of the building.
But still it was hard to breathe.
I started panicking.
Ah, there is one place I can go now.
I ran towards there as fast as I could.
✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏
I finally got there.
I stood on the stairs.
I don't know how I got here.
I probably was in a daze.
Surprisingly, it got easier to breathe.
But I was starting to get sunnier so I went under the the pedestrian bridge.
But how odd, it got even easier to breathe.
I lean against the wall half folded my legs, put my head on my knees and covered my head with my arms before I went into deep thought.
✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏
I started to wonder where it all went wrong.
Hmm...
It was probably when I was 14.
I remember making plans to go out with my friends over the summer break,
It was probably a camping trip.
But suddenly my parents said we had to migrate to another country.
And so we did, leaving our friends and plans behind, taking with us our money, memories and clothes.
I started to attend a new school but the curriculum wasn't suitable for me.
So we decided to enroll me in a school based on the curriculum I was used to.
But the issue was that the new term started in 8 months.
So I sat at home missing my old friends.
I was starting to suffer from loneliness without even knowing about it.
And in that loneliness, a dangerous idea made way into my head.
"The only person you can rely on is yourself"
And it dug itself in deep.
I started and completed school.
I enjoyed it and made friends.
I shared happiness, excitement and joy with them.
But I never shared pain, loneliness and suffering with them.
But it didn't matter much since I could meet them every day.
I started my first year of university.
I enjoyed it and made friends.
I shared happiness, excitement and joy with them.
But I never shared pain, loneliness and suffering with them.
But it didn't matter much since I could meet them every day.
But then came lock down.
I enjoyed it and made friends.
I shared happiness, excitement and joy with them.
But I never shared pain, loneliness and suffering with them.
But it mattered now since I couldn't meet them every day.
Each new message was getting harder to reply.
Each new person was getting harder to voice chat with.
My meager social skills I kept alive with physical contact degenerated.
The harder it got, the more I retreated into a false safe space I created for myself.
Of course if anyone pointed it out, I would be left exposed since this safe cocoon was a figment of my imagination.
I drowned deeper into distracting myself from reality since I started to be unable to cope with it.
Then came my final year of university when things got back offline.
It got hard to do even the basic things.
I barely made it through but somehow slugging through.
And when it all ended I was standing there like an empty shell.
"Only dead men have no ambition"
Yet here I was alive to somehow prove that quote wrong.
I didn't commit suicide or the likes, that is just a stupid thing since I had a shit ton of novels to still read.
A truly weird thing barely kept me alive, novels.
Yet I did not mind it.
But I somehow ended up transmigrating.
I tried to cope somehow by attaching myself to something.
I tried to cope with the help of family and friends but all of that belongs to Yuuta.
None of it is mine.
Hence I tried to attach myself to the plot of the novel.
I obsessed myself with it and tried to devote myself to it so that I can find something more solid to attach myself to in this foreign world
Yet reality once again played a cruel joke on me and ended it all.
I drowned myself in my thoughts for who knows how long.
Until I heard footsteps.