AUTHORS NOTE: The correlated song to this scene is "Dress Down" By Kaoru Akimoto. Like previously with the song "Lovin' You" from earlier in this volume, this scene is meant to be read with the song. I enjoy this concept and want to take it further. The structure of the scene might not make sense if you choose not to listen to it, as the scene with "Lovin' You" wouldn't have. If your a fast reader, slow down a bit or take a little longer pauses at periods. But please enjoy, final chapter in the "Starts With You" arc. also if you're reading I'd absolutely love some feedback, it'd mean so much to me. Enjoy!

 

No matter what I do, she was right… It doesn’t go away. It lingers. It eats away at me. That distant feeling of something that I’ve lost. As if it had to happen, even if I didn’t want it to.

We stand at the train station, so close to each other but it’s as if we’re worlds apart.  

This train-ride won’t bring me any further from my problems… 

It doesn’t push them off into the future. 

It only brings me closer to even more of them

She was right, it really doesn’t go away.

 

The wheels of the train rhythmically clacked along the tracks. Endless hours of the same clacking. The only noise on a silent ride.

She sits across from me on the other side of the aisle. Her sleeping face looks so peaceful. Her head resting against Hirano-san’s shoulder.

It just leaves me sitting here wondering what she’s dreaming about.

Will she wake up and think all of this was some dream? Will she have to come to terms again with what we said?

 

“What do you mean?” Mayumi nervously laughed.

“I— I can’t have you around me anymore… Never again.”

She laughed again, “No seriously? What do you mean?” Her eyes seemed to get a little wet.

“It’s for your own good. In the short time we’ve gotten to know each other I’ve hurt you so much. I can’t bear to see it.”

Mayumi stared up at him.

“You just came to this decision?” She turned her head away.

“It’ll just have to be this last time. Then it’ll never have to happen again.”

“That does nothing!”

“...”

“You just keep running from your problems and when I come around and try to help you, you push me away!” Mayumi took a deep breath in, “Why… Why are you like this!?”

“...Because that’s who I am…” Katsumi answered quietly.

“No! That’s who you’ve become!”

 

The city comes into view. The same place where all my same problems exist. My broken mirror, my destroyed bathroom, Nara…

The lights of it brighten the dark horizon as we approach. 

Did it have to be this way? I don’t know.

Was what I did a mistake…?

 

“I want to go back! Why’d I decide it’d have to be this way, Hirano-san?”

That same shitty cafe I’ve been growing so accustomed to.

“I don’t know… But you’ve made your choice. You decided and you followed through with your decision. That’s what matters.”

“But it’s not what I want! I don’t want this!”

“You can’t change it now. But what you did, you’ll learn from this.”

“Shut up! Why are you always talking down to me!”

“There’ll always be the future. There are so many people you’ve yet to meet, Katsumi.”

“Stop talking to me like I’m a crying child! Shut up!”

“I know you’ll get it soon enough.” Kaede put her arms around Katsumi and embraced him.

 

“Who I am now is who I am. And that person will only hurt you, whether he means to or not.”

“Shut up…” She whispered.

“That’s why I’m doing this.” 

“Just stop Katsumi.”

“I’ll deal with these problems on my own, you won’t have to worry about feeling like this ever again.”

“I said shut up! Why do you insist it has to be this way!? You can’t run from this forever!”

“...I can try…”

She laughed through her tears, “This is just some shitty joke, right? You're just making some stupid convoluted joke.”

“...”

“You’ll see Katsumi, it follows you… You don’t see it now, but it doesn’t go away.

 

I carried her home from the train station. She was asleep again. So soundly. The weight of her body on my back. Her slow, steady breathing.

Her door was locked.

I sighed.

I take her to my apartment and gently lay her down on my bed.

I wrap her in my blanket, and make my way to the sofa.

 

I jolt awake.

The feeling that I lost something.

It slipped out of my grasp.

I'm sore. The sofa is uncomfortable.

Arata-san sleeping on my bed.

The blanket over me is thrown into the air.

I rush down the hall towards my bedroom.

I grab the doorknob and swing the door open.

The bed is made.

The room is empty.

Light streamed through the open curtains.

I’ve lost something.

But I have no idea what.

 

The wind blows through the city, the clouds tinted by the rising sun. Golden color spills out over the world. New opportunities, people see the new day for another chance. Only to live the same life. Always in hope that what they’re searching for, finds them.

It doesn’t change.

It doesn’t go away.