~Being a friend means saying what hurts. But no one ever taught me how to live after that pain turns into destiny.~
1. A Question Asked Too Early
Someone once asked me,
"Is it necessary to try not to love?"
Back then I laughed it off. My life was too calm to understand what the question really meant. I answered with naive certainty that love was not something to be restrained. That humans simply love—it's that simple.
Now, when I remember my own answer, it feels like hearing someone else's voice.
Like a voice from a life I no longer live in.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2. The Summer That Changed My Direction
My change began during that summer vacation.
In a stretch of time so subtle it almost went unnoticed, I shifted from a child who looked toward the future with simple optimism… into someone bound to the past like feet tangled in roots.
Loneliness always arrives without sound.
And when it finally stands right in front of you, you realize you've been walking alone long before you ever noticed it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
3. Hiroshi and a Request Too Light
"Take care of the class president and be his good friend for life, okay, Satoshi."
Hiroshi's mother said it with a simple smile.
A request that sounded light.
But the world often begins with things that sound harmless.
Hiroshi was my class president. About my age—fourteen going on fifteen. We often went home together because we lived in the same direction. Riding in his parents' car became a habit. Laughter in the back seat became routine.
I often stayed over at his house too. Not just for friendship, but because his parents wanted me to help him with math.
The class president… with average grades.
I agreed not because I thought I was smarter—but because the sense of gratitude felt real. They were kind to me. And kindness often binds tighter than force.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
4. A Family Built on Targets
Hiroshi's parents lived by a rigid blueprint:
Good grades → achievement → top university → career → bright future.
For them, the future was a graph that must always rise.
Hiroshi himself never truly wanted any of that. He wanted something far simpler and more human:
—to be liked.
—to be loved.
—to be acknowledged.
But his wishes were always drowned out.
Class president was not his dream.
It was a uniform put on him.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
5. A Friendship That Was Almost Normal
My relationship with Hiroshi was fairly good. We played games, talked about school, talked about trivial things that felt very important at that age.
And like most boys our age… we talked about girls too.
Hiroshi desperately wanted a girlfriend.
He always blamed his weight.
Quietly, I knew that wasn't the real issue.
He didn't understand boundaries.
His curiosity crossed personal space.
And the world is not kind to people who don't recognize limits.
How did someone like him become class president?
The answer was simple: he was chosen—not by student votes, but by the homeroom teacher. At our school, when students were still getting to know each other, the teacher often decided. Sometimes through discussion. Sometimes by direct appointment.
Hiroshi stood in a gray area—not bad, not outstanding. Perhaps that was why the teacher saw him as unfinished canvas—someone who could be shaped, pushed forward, taught confidence.
I warned him once. Twice.
He got angry. Said I was acting superior.
From that, I learned something important:
sometimes being a friend means letting someone fall their own way.
Not because I didn't care—but because forcing it would only destroy the friendship. So I stepped back and stopped interfering.
Silence and distance can sometimes be a form of protection.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
6. A Desire Beginning to Rot
Hiroshi's obsession with girls slowly changed into something no longer innocent.
Pornography became part of his daily life.
Adult sites opened easily on his computer screen—both disturbing and fascinating to me.
I pretended to disapprove.
But my eyes still watched.
Back then I thought becoming mature meant freedom.
Now I understand—
it was the first door toward a kind of ruin we didn't recognize.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
7. A Trip That Should Have Been Ordinary
Despite our close friendship, it never crossed my mind that one day our paths would split. That summer trip felt full of laughter and noise, like a complete world with no hint of farewell waiting around the bend.
The school organized a three-day, two-night mountain villa trip with hot spring baths—meant to bring students closer to nature and give them a taste of grown-up comfort.
Not mandatory.
But almost everyone joined.
I went.
Hiroshi went.
We weren't assigned to the same room.
A small detail—
that should have meant nothing.
But every disaster begins with details people consider trivial.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
8. The First Crack in Memory
Strangely, every time I try to remember the first day at that villa… my memory stops at the same place.
A foggy morning.
The smell of wet trees.
Children laughing.
Then—darkness.
As if a piece of time had been torn out of my life.
I don't know whether I forgot—
or my mind refuses to remember.
And strangely,
the longer I've known Misaki,
the more often these fragments return in my dreams.
Hiroshi's face.
Hot spring mist.
And a voice calling my name… from a direction I can never locate.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
9. Closing — Memories Changing Shape
I used to believe the past was fixed.
Unchangeable.
Now I doubt that belief.
Because every time I try to recall that summer—
the faces change.
The details shift.
And within all that distortion, one feeling never loses its direction:
something was very wrong there.
And maybe…
I'm still not ready to remember how it truly began.