[CITY 2]

Masaru flinches awake at his office desk.

Taking in the silence for a moment, he listens for any tell tale sounds of evil salaryman clones sneaking about.

Once again, however, it seems as though he’s entirely alone on the office floor. He doesn’t think that’s ever happened to him: it’s surreal.

Doing his best to remember the agonizing pain of what he’s sure was just a minute ago, he focuses hard on the battle as he leans up and checks his computer monitor.

Once again, a prompt asking if he’d like to save the file, and once again it’s an untitled paint tool file.

Masaru’s look of cool resignation shifts into a frown as he gives into his curiosity.

“What have I been up to?” he asks out loud.

He flinches at what he sees on the screen, as a long lost emotion returns to him. Somewhere deep in his mind it’s been waiting to return, and now it’s here at the sight of the drawing in front of him.

Upon his computer monitor sits an image of Valerie, drawn with the mouse to create each painstaking line.

He’s frozen at the sight of it. The linework, the attempt at sectioning off parts of the form for paint-bucket shading, the particular shape of the subject’s eyes…

“Did… I draw this?”

This time, he asks it out loud and genuinely wishes someone were around to answer him.

He can hardly see it anymore with the wash of tears blurring his vision.

The picture’s done in the style of his art he had done on the computer when he was just sixteen years old, all the way up to the day his father cancelled the entire family vacation upon finding out his little secret.

That night, Masaru deleted everything he had drawn in his folder. Years of work, grinning faces, awesome swordfights, and forest-shaded pagodas. He didn’t consider himself a good artist, but every time he’d spend an hour gently maneuvering that mouse, something came over him. A flow of sorts took him to a place of peace that simply didn’t exist outside of the drawing.

Out of it awaited expectation: long nights of study for exceptional but imperfect grades.

Out of it awaited failure: a continual bar to reach for that he just couldn’t get but once or twice a year, only to be rewarded with a distant, quiet nod from his father at the dining table.

Out of it awaited anger: the resentment and bitterness that forms like a mold over the vibrant dreams of a hot-blooded youth.

In his art, he found himself, a state of being that did not require thought, studying, fretting, or shouting into a tear-soaked pillow at night.

The drone of the fluorescent lights give him a moment of pause before he wipes the tears from his eyes, takes a deep breath, and clicks on “don’t save”.

“Not me. Not anymore,” Masaru thinks before standing up and heading to the elevator, forgetting his briefcase.

On the way down, he flinches as his muscle memory attempts to wrap around something like the trigger well of a rifle.

He should have been on his feet right away to find Valerie— she did die here in the city before he could get to her last time, after all.

It’s okay, he knows the way to the city travel office. After all, it’s what he passes by daily to avoid the others as they go on their way out for drinks.

He’ll have to be fast.

Rushing through the ruined streets, he finds the office, with, yet again, the lights on in the conference room at the third floor.

His gaze sharpens, the stupid mascot’s voice already blaring through his subconscious as he approaches the doors at an urgent pace.

This time, a Gettouttahere-Kun waits near the doors, and he trips the motion sensor.

Come on over and visit Get Outta Here Travel!

We’ve got the plans to make your worries—

“Shut up,” he snips as he passes by into the building.

The door closes behind him into the obliterated lobby of the tourism center.

The path up is already singed into his memory, and he immediately leans in to sprint through the halls when something different happens:

With a delightful “ping!” the elevator doors open up.

Masaru blinks at the pristine interior revealed to him, and nods as he steps in.

“Think you can intimidate me?” he asks out loud with a stressed grin.

Suppressing the urge to avoid the obvious trap, he hits the button for the third floor, and the doors close.

He’s surprised that it actually takes him to his destination. With another cheery “ping!” it releases him from its metal embrace out into the third floor hallway.

The salaryman pauses for only a second in consideration. Why did it help him? He shakes his head of the thought, steeling himself for the confrontation with his other, “better” self.