~I always wanted to be normal… but if normal is not happiness, then I'm willing not to return.~
At our age, accepting a reality that misses expectations is an invisible wound—yet it keeps bleeding inside. People say there is always a place to go home to and tell your story. Always a shoulder to lean on. Like the kanji for "person," two figures supporting each other.
Today, that cliché feels like a lie repeated so often it turned into something people call truth.
Because when someone loses their "master"—loses their center of gravity—what remains is no longer direction, but emptiness.
And Tomo… is drowning inside that emptiness.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1. An Explosion That Happened Too Far From Me
The final seconds hung heavy in the air, just before the class bell shattered the tension like breaking glass.
I don't know which of my words became the trigger.
I only know that—somehow—my desk overturned with a violent crash.
Tomo kicked it.
The moment my sentence finished, he didn't answer with words. The silence lasted less than a breath before his anger burst without warning. One brutal kick slammed into the leg of my desk and flipped it over with a deafening bang. The impact froze the classroom in collective shock. Even Misaki—usually composed—looked startled by the sudden surge of emotion.
The sound felt like it came from underwater.
Muffled.
Slow.
Not entirely real.
He raised his fist.
I saw it move.
But the fear never fully reached my chest.
There was distance.
As if I stood a few steps behind my own body, watching someone who looked like me about to be struck.
Shouting.
Movement.
Chaos.
All of it unfolded without truly touching me.
Like a scene that no longer has an audience.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2. The One Who Stood There — Not Quite Me
I know the facts about myself:
Quiet.
Unremarkable.
Always looking down.
Speaking in half-volume.
I recognize that profile.
But the person standing beside the overturned desk…
He stood too straight.
His eyes were too calm.
He was not the me I knew.
And still—I let him remain there.
Not because of courage.
Not because of resistance.
But because I was no longer sure how to step back.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
3. Annie and Words That Didn't Reach Me
Thirty seconds later, Annie arrived and separated Tomo and me.
Her voice was controlled.
Her eyes were sincere.
Not explosive like Tomo's anger—but calm in a way that pressed harder. She asked to speak with me privately. I nodded, though my stomach tightened with an uneasy premonition.
From every sentence she spoke, I caught the same conclusion: she didn't truly know what happened to Suri either. Yet behind that uncertainty, she still asked for a confession—not to punish me, she said, but to save her friend.
I heard her.
I understood the meaning.
But the emotion behind her words… didn't reach me.
Like rain falling on glass.
Clearly visible.
Emotionally distant.
I knew she wasn't trying to corner me. Her push came from worry—from the urgent need to find an answer in any form, for Suri's sake, for peace that had gone missing.
Still, I chose silence. Letting her words evaporate unanswered.
I nodded.
Or maybe only my body did.
I'm not sure.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
4. Danger That No Longer Felt Like Danger
Tomo cursed again behind her.
Annie tried to calm him.
I knew violence was close.
I knew my position was unsafe.
But all of it felt like abstract calculation—
not a living threat inside my body.
Fear had become a concept,
not an experience.
And I realized something more frightening than fear itself:
I was beginning to lose the sense of ownership over what was happening to me.
5. When the World Drifted Too Far Away
I set the desk upright.
Collected my books.
My movements were neat.
Methodical.
As if my body still understood how to function—
while my mind lagged behind.
Classroom sounds returned.
Chairs scraped.
The bell rang.
But the distance between me and the world kept stretching.
People's footsteps echoed like they were walking through a long tunnel. Their faces looked too far away to truly reach.
And in the middle of it—
I realized something.
Even without looking directly at me, from the very beginning her gaze had always found my path. My existence had quietly remained within her line of attention—like something she marked long ago and allowed to grow without a word.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
6. Misaki — The Only Solid Point
Misaki didn't look at me directly.
But I knew—
she saw everything.
Strangely, that was where reality hardened again.
The classroom chaos could feel fake.
Tomo's face could feel like a mask.
Annie's words could feel like sound from an old radio.
But Misaki's presence—
felt more real than anything else.
Like a single focus point in a blurred world.
And when my eyes searched for her—
when I confirmed she was still there—
the weight returned to my chest,
as if gravity had just been restored to my body.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
7. The Awareness That Came After
I only understood it later.
When everything began to feel detached from me…
the first one I looked for was Misaki.
Not a teacher.
Not Annie.
No one else.
Only her.
And that fact appeared as a very quiet truth:
If one day all reality collapses,
Misaki might be the only thing I would still consider real.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
8. Closing — An Anchor That May Also Pull Me Down
I lowered my gaze to my hands.
Still moving.
Still warm.
Proof that I'm alive.
But for the first time, I'm not sure that means I'm still whole.
Because the world feels like thick fog now.
And inside that fog…
only one name remains clear.
Misaki.
And I no longer know—
whether she is the anchor keeping me from sinking—
or the gentle hand, slowly, quietly,
pulling me deeper.