A Restart? Perhaps?

Friday night, 12:00 AM (Midnight). Rin's small, tidy bedroom. The lights are off. Moonlight streams through the window, cutting a pale silver rectangle across the floor and catching the edges of her face.

Characters:

KARUIZAWA RIN (15): Exhausted, vulnerable, and grappling with a strange profound emotional dissonance.


(She is lying flat on her back on her bed, her head facing the ceiling. Her long hair, usually meticulously maintained, is a jumbled mess splayed out on the pillow, reflecting the disorder in her mind.)

(She stares blankly upward, her expression soft and unguarded in the privacy of the dark room. Her facade of cold certainty has crumbled.)

[MONOLOGUE - KARUIZAWA RIN]

Three days. Three days of silence. He's gone. He's exactly where I told him to be. Yet, the relief isn't here. It's just this void... This uncertainty...

(She shifts slightly, replaying the day’s encounter—Yuta walking away, unconcerned, respecting the distance. Her mind then inevitably jumps back to the train: the soft warmth of his shoulder, the vague whisper of his apology, the simple trust the elderly woman gave them.)

(As the memory sharpens, a fresh, sharp searing pain hits her chest—the same agonizing sensation she felt on the platform. It’s too specific, too immediate to be general stress.)

(She lets out a tiny, involuntary whimper and clutches her hand to her chest, right over her heart. Her frown deepens slightly as she tries to physically suppress the pain.)

[MONOLOGUE - KARUIZAWA RIN]

What is this? This ache. This stinging. It feels like betrayal, but I haven't been betrayed again. It feels like grief, but I haven't lost anything. It feels like hatred, but hatred is cold and clean. This is hot. This is messy.

(She squeezes her eyes shut, fighting the internal chaos. She tries to label the sensation, using her analytical mind to dissect the emotional anomaly.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

(Thinking, the words a silent plea) Is this the residue of my hatred? Is this what trauma feels like when the threat vanishes? Or...

(The moonlight shifts, catching the curve of her brows and the thin, pale skin of her eyelids. She frowns a tiny bit, the unfamiliar emotion twisting her face.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

(Thinking, the final, terrifying realization dawning) ...Or is this the pain of realizing that my hatred might be wrong? That the person I needed to hate for three years might be gone?

(She takes a slow, shaky breath. The weight of the possibility—that her emotional foundation is a lie—is overwhelming. The moonlight reflects off the curve of her brows as she slowly opens her soft eyes, accepting the night’s surrender to her confusion. Her control is broken, leaving her vulnerable to an emotion she hasn't dealt with since she was a child: doubt.)




Monday, the following week, 5:30P.M. Five days since the platform incident. The exterior gates of Seinan Middle School. The school's entrance is a busy, public area, but it's now thinning out as the last club members leave.

(Rin is standing a discreet distance from the gates of Seinan, close enough to see the students exiting, but far enough not to be noticed. Her usual stiff, defensive posture is gone. She is hunched slightly inward, one hand tentatively touching her chest where her heart is, a nervous, shy posture that speaks to her vulnerability.)

[MONOLOGUE - KARUIZAWA RIN]

I know what I have to do now. The doubt is the worst pain of all. It’s paralyzing. I can't live with the possibility that I've been hating an innocent person for three years, and that I've been nothing but cruel to him for the last two weeks. I need to know the truth. I need to confirm the monster is gone, or prove he’s still here. I need to see the mechanism of his manipulation clearly so I can crush it and let the hatred return.

(Yuta emerges from the main school building. He slings his bag over his shoulder, checks his watch, and begins walking toward the main pedestrian crossing—the standard route Rin saw him take the week before. He walks with the same purposeful, detached stride.)

(Rin spots him. The familiar sight sends a fresh tremor of anxiety through her. She waits for him to get a short distance away, then begins to follow him, tentatively keeping a nervous, uneven pace behind him.)

(She forces herself to call out. The name feels alien, dry in her throat.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

(Softly, barely a breath, the word foreign on her tongue) ..Hashimura-kun..

(The bustling street noise swallows the sound completely. Yuta, focused on his walk, doesn't react. The attempt immediately floods Rin with shame and a renewed sense of failure.)

[MONOLOGUE - KARUIZAWA RIN]

Pathetic. After all that analysis, I can't even speak his name.

(She forces more air into her lungs, pushing the sound out again, slightly louder, driven by the realization that he will vanish around the corner soon.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

(A little louder, but still too soft, still choked with nerves) ...Hashimura-kun..!

(He remains unaware. He is reaching the corner, about to turn out of sight and maintain the distance she asked for, thus cementing her doubt.)

(Rin watches in mounting panic as Yuta reaches the corner. He's about to disappear, and with him, the chance for clarity. The pain in her chest, the raw need for an answer, finally overpowers her shyness and her fear of confrontation.)

[MONOLOGUE - KARUIZAWA RIN]

No more running. No more silence. I need the truth, and if I have to shatter every boundary he's set, so be it. I will not live with this doubt.

(She abruptly drops the shy posture. Her hand leaves her chest. She takes a deep, ragged breath and sprints the remaining distance, pushing her weary legs to their limit.)

(She reaches him just as his foot is turning the corner. With a desperate lunge, she reaches out and grabs the sleeve of his blazer—a firm, desperate grasp on his elbow. The physical contact is jarring, a stark violation of the boundaries she herself demanded.)

(Yuta stops dead. The unexpected pull on his arm, the sudden violation of his protective distance, is a violent shock. He flinches, but does not pull away.)

(Rin, breathless from the run and the monumental effort of the action, finally speaks the name she hasn't used in years. It's not a shout of hatred, but a raw, desperate gasp.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

(Loud, clear, and trembling) Yuta!

(The use of his first name—the name of their childhood, the name of her trauma—is devastatingly intimate. Yuta slowly turns his head. His eyes, usually calm or guarded, are wide with complete, stunned surprise. He looks at her hand clutching his sleeve, then at her flushed, desperate face.)

HASHIMURA YUTA

(His voice is barely a croak, filled with disbelief and shock) Rin...?

(The silence that follows is heavy. Yuta’s self-loathing immediately spikes—he knows she must be furious that he violated her boundaries on the train, and now she has come to exact payment. Rin, however, is paralyzed by the sudden intimacy of the contact and the desperate nature of her own pursuit.)

(They stand there, hand on sleeve, on the edge of the busy street, their two worlds finally, violently, and irrevocably colliding again.)




5:32 PM. The sidewalk just before the corner, outside Seinan Middle School. A few distant students glance over, but the moment is intensely private.

(The silence after Rin's use of his first name is shattered immediately by her own reaction. She sees her hand still clutching his blazer sleeve—the intimacy is too much. She recoils as if burned, quickly pulling her hand away and tucking it behind her back.)

(She is flustered and deeply embarrassed by the desperation of her chase and the use of his familiar name. She tries to restore the physical distance, taking a wobbly step back.)

(Yuta, still reeling, sees the fear and confusion in her eyes. He lifts his hands slightly, attempting a cautious, non-threatening approach.)

HASHIMURA YUTA

(His voice is tentative, laced with pain) Rin... why? I thought you didn't want me to—

(Rin cuts him off mid-sentence. She recognizes the crack in his composure—the chance to get the truth. She straightens her spine, forcing the return of her normal composure, though her eyes remain wide and glistening.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

(Her voice is tight, strained, but clear—a torrent of three years of repressed trauma) No. I have many questions to ask you.

(She doesn't wait for his permission. The questions pour out, not accusations of recent manipulation, but the deep, foundational wounds of the past.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

Why did you only decide to change after you hurt me?

(The question is a direct hit. Yuta winces, bowing his head slightly in shame. He has no defense.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

Why couldn't you have done it sooner when I still.. loved you?

(Her voice trembles on the word "loved." She doesn't wait for him to process the admission of her past feelings.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

Why?

(Her eyes are glassy and ready to cry at any moment. The single, repeated word—the raw demand for causality—is devastating. She is demanding the logic behind his moral failure, and he has none to give.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

(Her gaze drops to the ground, unable to hold his shame-filled expression. Her voice is reduced to a heartbroken whisper.) Why...

(As the word escapes her lips, a single hot tear streams down her cheek, landing silently on the concrete. The sight of her raw, undeniable pain breaks Yuta's control.)

HASHIMURA YUTA

(His voice is barely audible, thick with emotion, his gaze fixed on the tear that stained the concrete) Because I was worthless.

(Yuta's voice, choked with shame, hangs in the air after his self-lacerating admission: "Because I was worthless.")

HASHIMURA YUTA

I didn't realize your pain until it was forced on me. I didn't change only for you, Rin. I changed because I was confronted with my own self-hatred, and I realized that the only thing worse than being a worthless pig was being a pig who caused agony to the one person who truly cared.

(He pauses, running a shaky hand through his hair. He doesn't look like the controlled, composed student Rin has seen for the last few weeks. He looks broken.)

HASHIMURA YUTA

I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I was too self-absorbed and cowardly to change when you still loved me. I was obsessed with a pathetic delusion of control, and it took a massive, catastrophic failure in my own life—a loneliness and a pain that finally mirrored what I inflicted on you—to make me see the monster I was.

(He takes a slow, deliberate step closer. The movement forces Rin, who had been staring at the ground, to lift her gaze and look him directly in the eye.)

(The setting sun is directly behind Yuta, blazing onto his face. The sharp light sculpts his serious and masculine features—the defined jawline, the clear focus in his eyes—a direct, glaring contrast to the rounded, uncertain 2024 Yuta Rin remembered. The physical transformation is undeniable proof of the effort behind his words.)

HASHIMURA YUTA

(His voice is steady now, stripped of all artifice, carrying the immense weight of his guilt) I'm sorry, Rin. If there was any way I could atone for my sins, please tell me. I didn't come back to beg for forgiveness, or to ask you to believe me. I came back to protect you on that platform, and I stayed away because you asked me to.

HASHIMURA YUTA

But if seeing me causes you pain, tell me what I must do. Leave the city? Transfer schools? I will do it. Your peace is the only thing that matters now.

(The complete, honest surrender—the offer to erase himself from her life entirely—is the final piece of evidence Rin's analytical mind needs. It’s an act of total self-sacrifice that no manipulator would offer.)

(Rin stares at him, her tear-stained face a study in utter devastation. The hateful monster is gone. The gentle, apologetic man in front of her is real. Her hatred, her fortress, is completely useless.)

[MONOLOGUE - KARUIZAWA RIN]

He's telling the truth. I can see it. The self-loathing is real. The change is real. He did it too late... and now I am here, standing in front of the man I hated, realizing I wasted years building a wall against a phantom.

(Rin closes her eyes again. Her answer for him is vague. She can't tell him to leave, because then she will be alone with the agonizing doubt. She can't tell him to stay, because the vulnerability is terrifying.)

(Rin is processing the crushing weight of Yuta's sincere apology and offer of self-exile. The agonizing possibility of an unknown future is finally less painful than the certainty of a hateful past.)

[MONOLOGUE - KARUIZAWA RIN]

He's gone. The monster is gone. The man in front of me is offering to break himself for my peace. I can't let him. If I walk away now, I'll never know if I could have forgiven him. I have to tear down the wall, not to return to the past, but to build something new.

(Rin opens her eyes. The tears are gone, replaced by a terrifying, vulnerable resolve that shines fiercely in the twilight. She steps forward, closing the small gap between them.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

(Her voice is stronger now, determined, though still raw with emotion) Don't leave. Don't go anywhere.

(Yuta stares at her, his face a mask of shock and disbelief. He had fully prepared for a final, furious dismissal.)

HASHIMURA YUTA

(Softly, confused) Rin... are you sure? I thought—

KARUIZAWA RIN

(She shakes her head, cutting him off, her resolve blazing) I'm not asking for a return to the past. I don't know if I can ever forgive the 2024 Yuta. But the person standing here... the one who saved me and apologized... I need to understand that person. I need to see if... if we can try for a restart. Not of the relationship we had, but of the friendship we never got to have.

(Rin extends her hand tentatively, a slow, difficult gesture of trust, offering it not to his sleeve, but toward his hand. It is the greatest risk she has taken in years.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

I need to try. To see if I can let go of the hatred.

(Yuta looks down at her outstretched hand. The gesture is profound, an impossible offering from the person he hurt most. His internal self-loathing screams that he is unworthy, but the honest resolve blazing in her eyes—the courage it took her to stand here—compels him.)

HASHIMURA YUTA

(He takes a deep, steadying breath. He gently raises his own hand, but hesitates, keeping his palm an inch from hers, respecting the choice to make physical contact with hers.) Rin... I don't deserve this.

KARUIZAWA RIN

(Her expression softens slightly, a hint of the kindness Ayaka described) Then earn it.

(Yuta's breath hitches. He finally closes the distance and gently takes her hand. His grip is careful, hesitant, yet warm and steady.)

HASHIMURA YUTA

(A genuine, if small, smile touches his lips—the first unburdened smile Rin has ever seen from him) Okay, Rin. Let's try.

(He releases her hand after a moment, taking the initiative to move them forward, creating the first action of their new dynamic.)

HASHIMURA YUTA

So, where do you wanna go first?

(As he says the words, the sky, cold and heavy with winter, releases its first particles. A few tentative snowflakes drift down from the darkening twilight, landing softly on Rin’s hair and Yuta’s blazer—a clean, white dusting on their complicated restart.)

KARUIZAWA RIN

(She watches the snow fall, a tiny, genuine spark of hope in her eyes) Somewhere warm. And somewhere we can talk for a very long time.

(Yuta nods. He gestures down the street, toward the concourse they had walked to earlier.)

HASHIMURA YUTA

There's a decent coffee shop near the station. We can start there.

(They begin to walk together, side-by-side, no longer hiding or running, leaving the dark shadow of the school and the painful memory of the corner behind them. The path ahead is uncertain, but the silence between them is no longer hostile—it is merely potential.)