Special Chapter: Days to Remember, and Days to Forget.

The day starts. Again. As much as I don’t want it to, the sun still rose, the moon still left, and the present is now the past.

Itoshi Ryuji, looks out the curtains of his room. The light beams with intensity, illuminating everything in its path. The sun shafts in Ryuji’s room are stagnant, the room seemingly still, like in an eternally paused state.

Ryuji gets out of bed, and walks into the kitchen. He gets a glass of water and looks around, the room lacking life, but it’s clean.

Some people would kill for a place like this. Clean counters, no messes, no noise.

Ryuji puts the glass in the sink, and walks to his room.

No…anything.

We cut to later in the day, Ryuji in class eating lunch.

The classroom seems busy, loud, and vibrant compared to his house, but Ryuji pays it no mind, as he is fixated on the food in front of him.

I have no intention of being like the rest of the people here. There’s no “one day” that I’ll push stuff off to, no days that need to stand out for me. If I’d choose to forget most days, today would be one of them.

Ryuji finishes up his meal, cleaning up and setting his lunch in his bag. Across the room he spots a group of people, friends. Talking and laughing amongst themselves. His gaze isn’t one of longing, or a gaze of bitterness, but one of recognition.

They live their days as they please, each one filled with something to remember. Sure, some memories slip through the cracks, but they always look upon the days as something fun, and a feeling they don’t want to forget.

Ryuji stares out the open window, looking at the clear skies, looking uninterested. Just below the window, we see an interesting scene.

A boy bowing down and saying something unheard to Ryuji, and a girl across from the boy turns and runs away.

Another person…another person who has a reason to remember this day. For better or for worse, this day will remain in his mind. But if it was already occupied with something else…perhaps he’ll be able to forget it, just not anytime soon.

Ryuji looks at his watch, and a timelapse shows the day flying by.

He gathers his things, then sets off to head home for the night, but on his way home he spots something that catches his eye.
Ryuji spots a girl, staring at a cake in a store window, the message reading “Happy Birthday”, with her eyes widened and her attention sufficiently caught.

Must be a special day for her, or someone else. For a cake like that, at least.

Ryuji pauses for a moment.

He begins making his way home again, thinking back to that girl.

The cake doesn’t mean anything unless you give it meaning. Birthday is just another day, like any other day of the week, but it only means something if we make it mean something. Birthdays are meant to be forgotten.

Ryuji makes it home, setting a box on a counter and getting changed. He sits down at the table, in front of him rests the box. He opens it up, and lights what appears to be a candle on the top of it.

Days are worth trying to forget, cause if everyone else forgets about them but you…

The Flame ignites, lighting up the cake and revealing the message on it.

Happy Birthday!

Ryuji cuts a piece of the cake, eating it.

The redness of his face under his eyes shows he’d just finished crying, but the teardrops lay on the table as he ate more of the cake.

…then they wouldn’t mean anything at all.