I assumed that trust could be built if the connection was established. Just like how I got acquainted to the parallel world in a few months. 

We’d returned back to the original world. That backdoor I opened had led us back here, to my empty room. The voice from before responded to my plea and brought me back where I started. Relief was the only thing I felt as I collapsed to the ground, inhaling the fresh oxygen of my own world. I hadn’t been here for about a month. 

But if the door led here, then could Guiral also come here? I crept back to the door on one knee and twisted the knob. I pushed it open. 

All I saw was the hallway of the apartment. The connection between my world and the parallel one had vanished. My head turned towards Sorah and Qawasumi, as he lay down on the bed wincing and turning. 

“What is this place?...” Qawasumi questioned, trying to keep Sorah stable. “Is this your world?”

I swallowed my spit and spoke with heaving breath. “Unfortunately… Yes.” 

“‘Unfortunately’?... You inferred of your world as if it was the most technologically advanced civilization!” She stood up from the bed and walked towards me. I raised my hands in protest, before looking away.

“Yes… I think my world would have treatment for Sorah’s wounds.”

Qawasumi smashed one of my shelves and drew her bow at me. “Then you better get some help! Something!...” 

“Woah, woah, calm down…” I kept my hands up as I got to my feet. Her face quivered in emotion, one I could not easily tell whether it was anger or sadness. She struggled to pull her bowstring at me, the arrow shivering in cold fear of the unknown. Although I knew that if I took a step to her, she would shoot me out of that fear. That arrow tip caused my skin to boil and intensify, aware of how the same weapon had killed a man from earlier. My body didn’t move as I inched towards my door.

“Kawari?...” The door swung open, as my mother peeked her head through. I bolted through as fast as I could. My mother couldn’t be in the picture. Everything was already as complicated as it was. The entire floor shook as I took my mother and entered the kitchen area, shielding her from Qawasumi who pursued me. 

“Kaizenji Kawari! You better solve this situation now! Sorah’s going to die!” Qawasumi’s screams hurt my ears in the tiny space. “Take him to whatever, take him somewhere!”

“Kawari?! Who is this woman? What have you been doing these past months?! Holed up in your room…” My mother yelled back at me, as she struggled in my panicking grasp.  “She has a bow!...”

“Mom, I can explain, I-”

“Like you can! Let me go!” My mother continued to fight back against me, as she escaped from my hands. “I’m going to call the police-”

“Don’t get any closer!” 

My mother ran towards the landline phone, which was left of where Qawasumi stood. If she got any closer to her, then she would shoot her. My heart raced with my legs to beat my mother in time. I stub my toe on a chair as I tripped. My body tossed itself forward and as I made it in time. 

An arrow flew. As I tackled my mother to the ground, I shielded her as a rod pierced my foot. It was sudden. The pain traveled up me and hit my brain. I shrieked as I stared at the thing in my leg. My mind began to go. Just like a needle in my skin, the arrow penetrated through.

“Miss Qawasumi please stop! Gh… It hurts more than I expected…” I covered my mother with my back, crawling towards her. “This is my mom, dammit! So please don’t shoot her…”

Qawasumi’s advance stopped as she lowered her bow. “Your mom?…”

“Yes!… Aah… please calm down, and we’ll help Sorah. Okay?…”

The bow and arrow dropped as she hesitantly approached me. It appeared she finally snapped out of her anger. “Oh no… I didn’t know, I-“

Qawasumi came closer, reaching out her hand to us. But my mother was indifferent, her hyperventilating voice cried and wailed. “I don’t understand what you are saying, foreigner! Get away from me!”

She didn’t understand what my mother spouted. However it was enough in her frail voice that tears began rolling down Qawasumi’s cheeks. She fell to her knees. That was when I realized.

They still didn’t trust me, while I still trusted my mother. I protected my mother knowing how many remarks she gave me, how many times she lashed out and criticized me my entire life. The bond I thought was with Qawasumi and Sorah weren’t there. I’d just assumed that they trusted me, and hoped that they would follow my ideals and expectations. 

“Kawari! Let me phone the police this instant! One!... Two!...” My mother started counting up to three, treating me like the child I was. It was understandable, and I did nothing but get off her as my leg went through a throbbing pang. 

“Guys?...” 

Everyone shifted their eyes towards the hallway, where Sorah leaned against the wall. He limped towards us in the kitchen, while we watched on. Centimeter by centimeter he walked with the wall as his crutch until he collapsed to the floor. Sorah continued crawling, his hasty breath wheezing with such harshness. 

“You, Kaizenji Kawari’s mother?” He winced as he finally let himself downward. 

“You… Speak Japanese?” My mother asked from the floor, as she backed away from me with her arms. 

“Your son… Kaizenji Kawari taught me. He… very nice person.” Sorah responded back, while Qawasumi and I sat back amazed at hearing him speak Japanese for the first time. He then crawled towards the nightstand, reaching for something on it. The phone. He stretched his arm out with all his might, grabbing the landline’s handset from the base. 

Sorah dragged it down with him, the wire stretching out as the base fell to the ground. He inched his way towards my mother, passing both Qawasumi and I on the floor. With every stride he made, he huffed harder with the oxygen in his lungs. My mother didn’t move except stare on with peculiar eyes. 

Once he finally made it near, he held out the phone for my mother. The exact phone she wanted to call the police with. “This… You want?...” 

At this point… She never took the receiver. 

Qawasumi and I tidied up the kitchen and room together. I flung the curtains open to see that it was still morning, and that all this fighting might’ve disturbed any neigbors from the adjacent rooms. We put things back in its place, the phone, the shelves, and furniture that overturned in fright. Qawasumi picked up her equipment, while Sorah watched from the dining table he sat. 

Next, I prepared some tea on the stove, something I still remembered about accommodation. My mother sat on the edge of the dinner table. From what unfolded, I learned a lot. Silence ensued until the kettle initiated the conversation. I served the tea to Sorah and Qawasumi, while my mother declined to drink. 

“Mom… There’s a lot I have to explain.”

“...” 

I had no idea where to start. From the door, to my decision to stay in the parallel world, it would only come from the deepest depths of fantasy fiction and light novels. Although the presence of Sorah and Qawasumi would solidify the evidence. 

“Mom, will you believe me?”

“I already do.”

“Okay, so- Huh?”

She put her hand on her forehead, exhausted from the events of the morning. “You want to talk about that door, right?”

I nodded as I walked to set down the plates in the sink. “To my room? Yes, about that…”

“I’ve already been through that door.”

Qawasumi and Sorah were unable to understand my mother and I’s exchange of words, while my face reeled in shock. “How?”

“The few times I came to check on you, Kawari. You’d already been stuck in your room for days,” she spoke solemnly without any anger, “When I knocked on your door, you wouldn’t answer. I did the same every couple weeks, knocking and knocking on that door of yours. Until one day, I pressed my ear against it, and heard sounds of trees and wind.” She stood from her chair, pacing back and forth. “I finally decided to open it, only to find another world.” 

I assumed back then, that my mother wouldn’t even bother to check on me. I expected the worst from her, as I expected the best from Qawasumi and Sorah. My priorities were wrong. I expected her not to care about me at all, only to find that she did. My childish thinking warped me to believe that she never wanted to care about me, that her sole goal was to ridicule me for my failures. 

“I think that it’s best for you to take these two and seek medical help.” She put the final hammer in the nail, as water condensed in my eyes. “That man whose Japanese is jouzu, find an emergency room of some kind. Although we can’t pay the full price…”

“No, mom, I’ll pay for it. I still have savings left over…” I shook my head, wiping the water in my eyes. I sniffled as I tried to hide it. It would be overboard if I cried now. If I cried, then I would be saying that this world was better than the parallel one. If I cried, then I would’ve contradicted myself. My face contracted as I battled against it, with all my imperfections and philosophy that I clung so hard to, ones I tried to convinced myself with. 

Soon, those droplets turned into rain. 

I did whatever I could with the first aid kit in the apartment. It wouldn’t do much, but it would slow down Sorah’s deterioration of health and infection. Hopefully mine as well. His scarf was replaced with fresh cloth and bandages as he opted to keep his bloody outfit. Qawasumi would be arrested for public disturbance with her bow, so upon stepping outside the front door she left it in my room.

Qawasumi and I helped Sorah out the entrance, while my mother sent us off. She didn’t wave goodbye or wish us any luck, except for staring at the patched up wound in my foot. She stood silently by the doorside as we walked down to the complex’s stairwell. 

We… ‘We’... I never noticed when I started to call Qawasumi, Sorah, and I as ‘we’. I avoided using it this entire time, since we were never really a true group in the first place. We were never a party, nor friend, nor foe. Whatever we were, that motivation continued to move us along as I finally helped Sorah down the last flight of steps. Here ‘we’ were, in a modern world with two people from a parallel one. 

I had assumed and guessed everything from the start. My assumptions and conjectures had caused these unfolding events to spiral, and the responsibility was mine to bear. Whatever would happen now, I had to be there for Qawasumi and Sorah. I couldn’t assume, suppose, project, or come to short-sighted conclusions from now on. 

I looked towards the sun of a new day, taking in the fresh air of my home world.