This is not an indictment.
You don't want to be here.
Youâre cold. Youâre always cold these days. You don't really know what to do about it. The only time you ever feel warm anymore is when youâre in the shower. You could sit there for hours, just letting the hot water scald you, staring off into space. Nobody particularly notices, because youâve always taken long showers. This is nothing new. Itâs not like you know what to do with yourself otherwise these days.
Youâre quiet, you sit there, they give you space. Bustle around you with things to do. You don't want to be here. You don't say anything, because what does that even mean? Youâre at home. Where are you supposed to go? You say youâre going to take a shower.
The showerâs the only place where you don't feel eyes on you, and youâre cold, so it works out.
Youâre tired. You don't know what to do, so you sit there. You take a shower. You sit there some more, but this time in the shower.
You don't feel like a person.
You want to throw up.
Just writing this makes you nauseous. You don't plan on showing anyone, but at the same time you do. You shouldn't. Youâre enough of an eyesore already, when you sit there and do nothing and obligate them to be concerned for you. Theyâre corpses in their own right. Youâre not entitled to exclusive rights to feeling like a dead man walking. The dissonance of a death that felt real but never was.
Something broke in you when the press came down. Something the simulation couldn't recoup. Amami tries to treat you the same as before, but itâs not. It will never be the same and looking up into those eyes makes your stomach churn.
You don't want to be here.
You don't want to be here.
You don't want to be here, but thatâs a lie.
Maybe you just don't feel like you belong here. Or rather, you shouldn't be here.
You can't keep weighing them down. They deserve to move on and live their lives. Amami wants to go places, see the world; Momota wants to dive into his personal projects, revive his passionâbut instead theyâre both saddled with you.
You don't know what to do.
So you do nothing.
Nothing works.
You take a shower and pretend you don't exist a little more. A warm, wet hangar.
Suddenly youâre somewhere else, somewhere new, and Momotaâs there but Amami isnât and after everything isn't that just the cruelest irony? You could barely meet those pretty eyes and now youâll never see them again.
You think youâre done being you for a while. Nobody really wants you around anyway. They say they do, but you know thatâs just a platitude. The least you could do was be someone more palatable. Someone with more of a personality, someone with input, someone who wants to do things and not just sit there, someone who doesn't always ruin the mood either by passively permeating the room with negativity or actively spitting acid at the most trivial things.
You know itâs better that way. You know everyone would get on better if you just went through with it. It would be better. Itâs always better. Things are less bad, happy even, in the right circumstances. Things are never happy when youâre around, so naturally the common denominator here is you. You need to go.
But you can't help but hope someone stops you, so selfishly you delay the inevitable.
