I reached the train station a bit late than our scheduled time.On the bench in the waiting area was the person I had come to meet.She was wearing a half-sleeved blouse on top with the shoulders exposed and a simple white skirt that reached to her knees.I walked up to where she was.Upon hearing the sound of my boots, she turned her head towards me slowly.“I thought you wouldn’t come.” She said with a heave of relief.As I sat down on the bench next to her, I thought that the charm the usual Nakamura had was not present on her face tonight. As if something had diminished her radiance. I knew that I was to blame for that one way or the other.The time was 11: 30 at the night. She had asked to meet at 11 but I ended up being late because I wasn’t yet sure whether I should go or not. It was Hayami’s persistence that I came here even though I was half an hour late as a result.“Attention all passengers. The last train for today will be arriving in fifteen minutes. I repeat…”The static

“It’s too late.”Bam!Aina slammed the table hard with both of her hands and stood up simultaneously.“It’s not late. It is never late. You still have so much of your life ahead. You will always have a chance to make things right.”Even if I lived, I know there is no way I can make things right. In fact, I would only make things worse. Yeah, not even bad, but worse. That’s my ability. I can make things worse without getting them bad. Though no point in thinking about that.Unaware of my internal feelings, Aina spoke at the top of her lungs.“Don’t give up. We can work things out. So, it’s still not late. As long as you are alive.”I gave a smile to her in response, without actually intending to.“Yeah. That’s right. As long as I am alive.”“Yes, that’s right!”Misunderstanding my statement as agreement with her words, she broke into a smile only to break into a cold sweat with my next words.“But what do you mean by being alive?”“Eh?” She gave a quizzical look to my question.“What a

For the next five minutes after my mom dashed to the bathroom, no one spoke. I feel like these long and short stretches of silence in the middle of conversations were happening a lot to me. Was it a meaningful silence or a meaningless one? Did the silence speak louder than the words or was it just and merely silence? I don’t know.“She sure is taking long. What must she be doing?” The old hag broke the silence with a meaningful question.“Yeah, I wonder what.”Although I knew what she wanted to hear from me, I played the fool. I knew what she was doing in the bathroom. She was without a doubt crying her eyes out hurt by the scathing words of her own son.The old hag gave me a smile as if she had seen that coming.“Putting aside your words that you being born itself was the root of it all, don’t you feel angry?”“Angry? Why?”“If you hadn’t learned what your mom had been doing, things wouldn’t have gone that out of hand. Let’s say if your mom hadn’t been cheating on your dad, if Nakamu

“Finally.”I muttered as I stood on the edge of the rooftop holding hands with Hayami.The cold wind ruffled our hairs.I was battered. Bruise covered my body here and there and there was also a gun wound on my lower leg. Hayami had ripped her skirt to tie it around my leg to prevent blood loss. Although I found it hilarious that she was trying to prevent the blood loss of someone who was going to die soon, I didn’t speak a word and let her do her work.“We can finally die.”Although I had wanted to go in a grand way, this was good in its own way. It gave me the adrenaline rush that made my spirit pump even more.Suicide?No.Don’t term what we are about to do with something as petty and cowardly as suicide.It was the only good thing that I was going to do ever in my life. Everyone should be overjoyed that I was about to remove a corrupt and wretched existence from this world.My life, not only was it meaningless, it was sought with suffering, pain, chaos, betrayal, deceit, and every

The news of Kageyama’s death had saddened both Yamamoto and Ito.For Yamamoto, Kageyama had been a good friend. He even considered him his best friend. That was how much he trusted and not to mention admired him.Kageyama had been his savior. Crushed by the guilt that he hadn’t been able to save Yua back then and unable to take any action, he had already given up. The one who gave him the push to take action and make things right was none other than Kageyama. If he hadn’t come into his life, then he wouldn’t have been able to do anything. He would have most definitely remained frozen as always while he watched Yua suffer more and more every day and he kept lamenting. Kageyama was his hero. And so he was for Yua as well.Yamamoto knew that Yua was in love with Kageyama. Although he was hurt, he didn’t hate him. In fact, he thought it was inevitable that she falls in love with him. He had saved her from what seemed like an impossible situation. He had dragged her out of that muddy world