Bright Lights, Big City

##Important Note: Listen to "Dress Down" by Kaoru Akimoto while reading this chapter, it was desgined to go along with it.

No matter what I do, she was right. It doesn’t go away.

It lingers, eating away at me. That distant feeling of something I’ve lost. As if it had to happen, no matter how badly I didn’t want it to.

We stand at the train station, so close to each other, yet, as if we’re worlds apart.

This train-ride only brings me closer to my problems. Pulling me away from that fantasy.

She was right, it really doesn’t go away.

The wheels of the train rhythmically clacked along the tracks. Endless hours of the same clacking. The only noise on a silent ride.

She sits across from me on the other side of the aisle. Her sleeping face looks so peaceful—her head rests against Hirano’s shoulder.

It leaves me sitting here, wondering what she’s dreaming about.

Will she wake up and think all of this was a dream? Will she have to come to terms with what I said again?

The conversation is still so vivid in my mind.

“What do you mean?” Mayumi nervously laughed.

“I— I can’t have you around me anymore… Never again.”

She continued laughing. “No seriously. What do you mean?” Her eyes seemed a little wet.

“It’s for your own good. In the short time we’ve gotten to know each other I’ve hurt you so much. I can’t stand seeing it.”

Mayumi stared up at him. “You just came to this decision?”

“No… It’s been on my mind for a while.”

“So you’re leading me around? Pretending that everythings okay!?”
“...”

“Going moment to moment wishing things were different? That’d you’d somehow change!?”

“You’ll have to bear it this last time… then my bad decisions can never hurt you again.

“That does nothing!”

“...”

“You keep running from your problems! When I try to help you— you push me away!” Mayumi took a deep breath in. “Why… Why are you like this!?”

“...Because that’s who I am…” Katsumi answered quietly.

“No! That’s who you’ve become! You don’t have to do this...” Mayumi trailed off.

“In a few years, you’ll have forgotten my face, my voice. I’ll just be a neighbor you used to have.”

The city comes into view. The place where my apartment that reeks of tobacco exists, my destroyed bathroom, my shattered mirror.

The lights of the city brighten the dark horizon as we approach.

Did it have to be this way?

I don’t know.

Was it a mistake…?

                                                                             ☒ ☒ ☒

“Who I am now is who I am. And that person will only hurt you, whether he means to or not.”

“Shut up…” She whispered.

“That’s why I’m doing this.”

“Just stop Katsumi.”

“I’ll deal with these problems on my own, you won’t have to worry about feeling like this ever again.”

“I said shut up! Why do you insist it has to be this way!? You can’t run from this forever!” Tears wouldn’t stop streaming down Mayumi’s face

“...I can try…”

“I can’t believe…” She wiped tears from her eyes with the back of her hands. “I can’t believe I loved you.”

“...”

“For over a year I looked at you and thought of you as someone to look up to. Even after you got involved with Takagi… I thought that person was still in you.” She laughed. “This is just some shitty joke, right? You're just making some stupid convoluted joke.”

“...”

“You will see Katsumi, it follows you… You don’t see it now, but it doesn’t go away.”

“...”

“When are you going to wake up, Katsumi?”

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I carried her home from the train station. She was asleep so soundly. The weight of her body on my back, her breathing slow and steady, it was comforting.

Arata’s door was locked. I sighed.

I take her to my apartment and gently lay her down on my bed, wrapping her in my blanket.

                                                                           ☒ ☒ ☒

I jolt awake.

The feeling that I lost something.

That it slipped out of my grasp.

I'm sore. The sofa is uncomfortable.

Arata sleeping on my bed.

The blanket over me is thrown into the air.

I rush down the hall towards my bedroom.

I grab the doorknob and swing the door open.

The bed is made.

The room is empty.

Wind ruffled the curtains

The morning air is cold, isn’t it?

I’ve lost something.

The wind blows through the city, the clouds tinted by the rising sun. Golden color spills out over the world. New opportunities, people seeing the new day for another chance. Only to live the same day again.

Always in hope that what they’re searching for, finds them.

It doesn’t change.

It doesn’t go away.