Volume 3 – Chapter 17: The Burden of Existence

Today is August 18, and there are 43 days left.

Kaito opened his eyes to a heavy air the day after, thick with unspoken thoughts and unprocessed emotions. He still stared at the same bleak world and an uncertain future through the window again. He sat up, gazing through the gray sky outside, and his mind was tangled in all the thoughts that troubled him the day before.

There was Rika, who lay beside him, moving in her sleep as though even in the darkest hours of the night, the incoming end could be felt resting heavily on her brow. For a moment, he looked at her and wondered whether they questioned the same things about it all—about the purpose of their fight and the unavoidable end lurking just behind the impending horizon.

A regular company of thought that had become constant in recent days again echoed that simple question: Is it worth it? The world was dying. They were dying. And yet, they fought. But what were their fights for anymore?

He quietly stood up so as not to disturb Rika and walked to the small window. Outside, the landscape remained motionless and frozen in time, just as the stillness had rooted in his heart. The world around them had fallen into chaos, yet the fight was still alive, the struggle went on.

Pressing his palm against the cold glass, Kaito's breath fogged the external view. What was the point in holding on to this fight, anyway? What sense does it make to survive when even the world has already slipped away? He, however, did not know that, and it horrified him.

Rika's voice silenced everything else. "Kaito?" She was awake, now propped up against his side, eyeing him with quiet concern.

He faced her, his eyes matching hers, which seemingly bore the same cyclone he housed inside them. "You think about it too?" he asked, voice much softer than he wanted it to be.

"Of course," said Rika slowly, hands on her lap. "We must. We must think about it. For what reason are we fighting if we don't know why we're doing it?"

She did, and with a deep breath, Kaito shut his eyes. "I don't know if I can keep up with this. I don't know whether it matters anymore."

Suddenly, Rika was soft in her expression. She stood up and came over to him, draped a hand gently on his shoulder. "Maybe it isn't in the end that it matters-but how we live right now. What we're choosing to do, what we're choosing to be-before the end comes."

Kaito continued staring at her, words slowly sinking on him. "But what if... what if all we're doing is a waste? What if we can make no difference?"

Rika didn't say anything for a while, instead taking a step closer with her voice calm but firm, "Then we live anyway. We choose to live, Kaito. Even if it's just for today. Even if it's just for the people around us. We fight, not because we think we can win, but because we can. Because we choose to."

Kaito stood still, his heart heavy with the weight of her words. It was a different perspective-a fragile kind of hope, born not from belief in victory, but in the value of their existence, of choosing to live despite the inevitable end.

"I'm not sure if I can bring myself to do this," he whispered, his voice quaking. "I really don't know if I can keep this up." 

Hands placed squarely on his chest, she looked seriously, "You don't have to do it all by yourself," she said softly. "We are in this together, Kaito... whatever happens now will happen to us together."

For a moment, Kaito closed his eyes, the warmth of her hands against his chest like a lifeline that wrapped around him as her words faded: Maybe it wasn't about the grand scheme of things, maybe it was just the right now-living moments they could still share, people they could still save, fights they were able to take on.

He reopened his eyes, looking back at her once again, this time with a little more clarity, a little more resolve. "Together," he repeated, his head nodding slowly after. "Together we face it."