I've been planning this story for a while now. This was originally intended to be a one-shot but I changed my mind. I hope you enjoy reading this story. :)

I… I've always had a mixed reaction of you.

I remember a time when my mouth was wide open, the air going in and out as I ran. The clothes I wore that day were soggy. Wet clothes devoted themselves to my skin, my whole body shivering from the cold. Underneath it I saw a glimpse of goose bumps crawling all over my body, but I didn't pay attention to it nor flick away the muddy soil attached to my skin. Instead I ran for what it feels like an eternity; but no matter how fast I ran, I hear the footsteps behind me. The sound of your steps intensifies my fear.

You hollered my name in a high soprano and I winced after hearing your scream. I didn't know where I was going, but I thought anywhere would be fine as long as I didn't have to deal with you. I still remember the harshness of the wind that cut against my cold cheeks trying to run away. My hair danced in the air with water dripping in the ends. I heard your footsteps as I ran across a number of roads, trying to block everything out of my sight.

I remember… I remember your footsteps gradually becoming louder and closer, and I mentally slap myself for not being athletic as you were.

"Yuuma!"

You said it again and again. You shouted my given name in that heavily accented voice of yours.

I hated it.

I don't regret thinking harshly. I despised the way how you said my name. I hated everything that came out of that ill-mannered mouth of yours, and I still do.

I continued to run with my eyes closed hoping you would give up and leave me alone. You were always headstrong and ferocious until you got what you wanted. Unlike me, you never knew what the term "give up" meant. You never gave up.

"Yuuma!"

Do you want to know something? I hate you. I hated everything about you. Those three simple words; you deserve it. Your voice frightened me so much that I used my remaining strength to make a run for it. It would've been easier if you didn't follow me.

I don't remember the specific details, but I remember hearing a melodious series of sirens followed by a loud crash. A piercing scream ends the big finale and there isn't a round of applause to give approval of the ending. Instead it's met by complete silence. I stopped to catch my breath and once I did, I turned around and saw a colorful mob of cars surrounding the road with bystanders approaching a scene.

I saw a glimpse of a little girl lying on the concrete floor, not moving an inch. Her eyes are closed and blood gushes around her pale body without her permission. Bystanders look at the freshly decayed body in shock and a few weak-minded people scream at the sight. I watch her while my clothes gets parched by the sun to see if she has the strength to move. She doesn't. It takes a while for me to come to a conclusion that the little girl is actually you.

Now this is the part where I remember everything like it happened yesterday. I feel a small laugh that was stifled in my throat, and suddenly the tips of my lips curve upward. A loud siren cuts through the air and the crowd divides to let the ambulance come over and do their job. I watched the whole scene unfolding from a distance and I remember smiling as I watched it.

What an ungrateful brat I was.

Welcome to the Fantastic World

The incident happened ten years ago. You and I both matured and have grown by now. I heard you're in a coma having an endless dream while I continue my studies at school. If you ever decide to come back to me, then come. I think I might be able to forgive you now.

Do you know how my life is now? I'll tell you.

After a long lecture of the lesson, the bell rings to signal the end of class. It's lunchtime now and the girls immediately flock around the teacher to gush before the teacher can escape. While they do that, the boys check whatever mail they have on their phone or move around to meet their friends.

What do I do? I do nothing.

"Hiyama-sensei," one girl asks, "when are you going to get a girlfriend?"

The teacher, Hiyama-sensei, sighs before replying his usual answer, "I don't know."

The homeroom teacher has no choice but to endure the endless chattering. While the kids move around, the door suddenly slams open and enters a certain silver-haired yandere holding what it seems to be a lunchbox. The girl giggles and rushes over to a blonde-haired boy who happens to sit in front of me.

"Len," she says shyly, sitting on the empty seat next to the boy. "I made lunch for you!"

The blonde-haired boy looks up at her in surprise before quickly looking away and manages to mutter a small approval without making eye contact. The girl is blind to notice that Len doesn't return her feelings, because she grins and happily starts to open her present.

"Tei," the boy managed to whisper. "Aren't you supposed to be in college?"

Tei stops uncapping the thermos and grins. "Mmhmm! But how can I sit through boring lectures if I keep thinking about my little Lenny starving himself?"

"But college is-"

"I made this for you," Tei cut him off by showing him a small number of neatly crafted rice balls. The silver-haired girl reaches to pick up one of her precious food and holds it in front of him. "Say ah~"

The boy, Len, has no choice but to obey and forces himself to eat the organic food. His usual breezy glibness was gone; he was uneasy. Poor boy doesn't have the courage to tell her off. It's funny how an amiable girl in college is dating the smartest and youngest boy in our class, who's actually supposed to be enrolled in middle school. Tei shoots many of her heated glares at people looking at the couple, including me. It's hard to not look at them when they happen to sit right in front of me.

I shift my eyes away and look at the clock hung on one side of the wall. Across the room is a teal-haired girl surrounded by her group of friends, but she doesn't join in on their conversation. Instead, I spot her stealing glances at the infamous couple from time to time. Many students sit in small groups and either complain or share their latest news. I don't belong in any group. I don't mingle.

With no one to talk to, I stand up and make my way out the door to go to the parking lot with my car keys in hand. I pass by Taito, a boy in my class, sitting by himself in the staircase quietly eating his food while scrolling through his phone. I snort when I pass him and he doesn't look back. Everyone knows the infamous Taito Shion. Taito is around the same age as Tei, so he should've graduated a few years ago but he never does. I finally make it to the parking lot and find my car. It's best to kill time ordering food at the nearby convenience store instead of sitting in class with nothing to do.

There's a convenience store around school that's fairly popular among people in their late teens. Everyone knows this place. It's well-known in an amusing way because of several reasons. One reason happens to be because of the infamous full-timer. She's known to be tagged as a hopeless inebriate.

When I set foot into the store, no one comes out to greet the customer. The full-timer never greets anyone and it's rare to see her well-behaved. I see the full-timer behind the counter with her head resting uncomfortably against the edge of the cash register. Her eyes are shut and she doesn't even try to wake up from her dream. No one knows exactly why the owner of the store doesn't fire her because all she does is drink day and night.

I go to the back of the store to pick a few chips and something to drink. When I return to the counter, the employee doesn't wake up from her hangover so I place the coins near the counter until I hear her groaning. Her eyes batter for a second before forcing herself to sit straight. Her bloodshot eyes are bright red- the color of blood. She tries to focus her gaze on me and manages to gurgle something, but not in a clear voice.

"Food," I lift up my snacks, pointing to the cash with my other hand. "I put the money on the counter."

My answer causes her to giggle and she eventually starts to laugh uncontrollably.

"Do you know who I am?" she questions. "Do you?"

"Meiko," I answered.

"Don't call me that!" she shouts, her anger suddenly starting to rise. The brunette suddenly grabs my money and throws them at me with poor aim. "You're wrong! You're wrong, wrong, wrong!"

Her temper doesn't affect me; she's as callous as ever. I grab my chips and head for the door until she says something back.

"I remember you!" she slurs, pointing at me. "You're that… stoic… stupid…"

Her words cause me to stop on my tracks. I'm able to mollify my anger and keep my voice level in control as I say in a cold voice, "Shut up."

The brunette snaps and starts to say a series of colorful words as I step outside. Everything's going to be alright, I tell myself. I'm positive the brunette will drink a few bottles before she gets knocked out.

By the time I reach my car, I notice the time and silently a curse to myself at how much time I've wasted. The small talk with that drunkard took longer than I thought. I start the car and swiftly enter the intersection. Lunch is almost over and I still need to eat my chips. There's no time to follow the speed limit so I freely rushed on the way to school.

I pass the slow drivers and ignore the warnings that were meant for me. Everything seemed to be going fine until a sudden pop rings through my ear from the back side of the car and the vehicle swerves violently from side to side without my approval. It's too late to hit the brakes and I'm unable to control my reaction as the car starts to swerve uncontrollably through the lanes and into the sidewalk. Pedestrians scream at my lack of sense and move away somewhere safe. All I can hear next is a loud crash and a few loud vibrations before everything's silent.

My head hurts.

I'm unable to open my eyes. The eyelids somehow seem to be glued together and fell unusually heavy. I feel drops of liquids strolling around my face and smell something burning nearby. It's not long before my senses start to fade and I start to feel light. The colors slowly disappears one by one until everything turns black.

The first thing I notice when I open my eyes is the brightness of the sky. Lights are reflected everywhere making it impossible to avoid. It's so bright that I can even see a glimpse of it with my eyes closed. The first thing I feel when I try to move my hands is pain flickering all over my body in a steady tempo. It hurts. It hurts a lot. It took some time to steady myself and once I did, I found myself on the same spot as I was last time my eyes were open. My body felt stiff, but other than that, there was no real damage. I somehow managed to dodge the accident unscathed.

I was in a daze when a mental image of my car suddenly popped up so I looked around for it, hoping the damage has been kept at a minimum. But to my surprise, the car was nowhere to be seen. There weren't any scrapes or broken pieces of metal all over the ground. I was sure there should've been blood around, but there wasn't. Looking down at my clothes, I found them neat and clean. My arms weren't covered in blood or scarred in certain places. Random citizens walked passed me without a care and didn't stop for a second to witness a car accident. What happened? I thought. Did I dream everything?

I aimlessly walked around for a while before remembering I left school to get lunch from the store. I don't know how long I've been passed out but lunch should be over by now. So I went back to the campus by foot and entered using the backdoor. The janitor sometime forgets to lock the back door and to my luck, it was open. I managed to enter the halls unseen and scurried to my class. Every step I took equaled a beat of my heartbeat. This isn't the first time I've been late to class. Hiyama-sensei's going to give me detention for sure. The door to the classroom was open and I entered the room out of breath.

"Sorry I'm late!" I gasped, bending down to rest my hands against my knees. I waited for the teacher to start nagging about coming late to class and hit my head with a ruler, but I didn't feel anything. I slowly looked up to see what he was doing, and when I saw him, I felt my eyes widen at the sight.

Kiyoteru was lecturing the class about something and acted as though I was invisible. But that's not it. There's something about Hiyama-sensei that surprised me. He still looks the same as a few hours ago, but there's something about his appearance that made him look younger and sort of… wild.

I faced my classmates wondering what happened and took a step back when the class wasn't filled with the usual faces I saw every day. They weren't the students in my grade. There's no Len or the teal-haired girl. In fact, there's a boy I've never seen in my life who's sitting on my seat. It's like every one switched to a different class and this one was replaced with a new group. They all focused on the teacher and didn't seem to be interested in the student who just came late. No one looked at me. I felt invisible. I felt unneeded.

Quivering, I extended my arm to grab Kiyoteru's hand, hoping he would recognize me, but something else happened. My hand went through his hand. I pulled my hand back like I just idiotically touched something on fire. My heart was trembling at what I just witnessed. Kiyoteru didn't seem to notice I just thrust my hand inside his organs. He continued to act like I didn't exist and continued on with his lecture. I tried talking and gathering their attention with everything I could, but they all showed the same result and my heart seemed to beat rapidly after every attempt.

After multiple failed results, I put an end to this madness and turned to look at the board in defeat. Kiyoteru wasn't using the whiteboard like he usually does. Instead, the wall disappeared and he was using a chalkboard. When I glanced at the date he posted on the far right corner, my heart nearly stopped a beat. I slapped myself hoping I would wake up from a dream, but nothing happened.

I should've noticed it earlier. The car accident and the body incident showed me everything I needed to know. I should've known by now. Time cannot repeat itself, but it just did.

I am the future.

I came back to the place I woke up and desperately started looking for any leftovers from the car accident. I'm positive I fell into a deep sleep after the tire exploded. There should be some kind of clues, but I couldn't find any.

I hoped people would stop to look at me wondering why a teenager was lying on the ground in the middle of a busy street, but everyone seemed to be in a hurry; or if they weren't, they were pretending not to notice my existence.

"Excuse me," I said to a tall man. The tall businessman was walking toward my direction, but he ignored my words and kept his pace. I repeated the words louder and louder hoping it would grab his attention, but it didn't. Eventually he walked into a busy crowd and I lost sight of him.

I sat on the cold ground, looking helpless as ever. It rains, and I'm somehow drenched in rain. I look at my wet hands wondering why I'm able to hold onto the liquid but not a human's hand. I must've been sitting on the sidewalk for over an hour because my body is shivering and my hands grow numb. It's not long until a shadow casts through and I look up to see a little girl standing in front of me with an umbrella in hand. We don't speak. I felt as though we were both waiting to see who'll speak first. She continues to glance at me and I simply look back without uttering a word. It seems like a year passed before she made the first move and stepped closer to place her small orange umbrella right above my head.

"Mister," she says in a child-like voice, "why are you sitting here like a bum?"

I continue to look at her, daring her to look away. I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out. I close it and point to myself. "Me?" I managed to say in a cracked voice.

The little girl looks at me like I was stupid or something. "Of course," she huffed. "Who else would I be talking to?"

My jaw dropped at her response. I quickly turned to look around to see if there was anyone next to me before looking back wide-eyed when I found no one around. "You can see me?" I asked, flabbergasted.

"Mister, are you sick somewhere?" she asked, looking concerned. When I didn't reply, she reached her hand to touch mine. I was about to tell her not to touch me, but I wanted her to touch me at the same time. I expected her to actually touch my skin since she could see me, but it didn't. After noticing this, the girl let out a little gasp of surprise and it was her turn to look at me with wide doe-like eyes. She watched me closely as if I'm a human experiment and slowly reached out to try again. The results were the same. She tried again and again, and she always failed.

"My name's SeeU!" she announces happily. She said it confidently like I deserved to know her given name. "What's yours?" she asked.

"Yuuma," I answered without a second thought. My mind is in a mess right now. SeeU. I know that name. It's her. It's her. I'm confused about this whole thing. Why is SeeU the only one who's able to see me?

"I know someone named Yuuma!" she says, looking excited. "There's a boy in my class with the same name as you!" SeeU leaned closer to observe my facial features and said quietly, "You look exactly like him. Are you two related?"

Stunned, I quietly look away as SeeU laughed a socialite's laugh. "Mister," she says. "Are you a ghost?"

"Think whatever you want." I responded.

She seemed to think about it for a second. "Do you want to stay over at my house for the night?"

"No." I stood up and turned to walk away, hoping to get rid of her; but she soon followed behind and eventually walked by my side. SeeU's a strange little girl. She kept trying to smash her small body against mine so we would fit under her puny umbrella together.

SeeU practically had to jog to keep pace. She took three or four steps for every one of mine. She never shut her mouth the whole walk home. She is outgoing and flamboyant, continuously talking and joking. I felt tense and stiffened the whole time, but her words eventually convinced me to stay for the night. It's just one night, I told myself. It's only a night.

SeeU's house had a pair of faux-rustic wooden benches at the end of their driveway, perhaps to offset their ostentatious mansion- or perhaps to emphasize it, as if to say, "You think this house is grand? Seriously? Then you should come see our real house!" I look closely at the decoration estimating how much a single wood piece would cost while SeeU closed her umbrella.

"Nanny!" she kicked the door instead of knocking it. "I'm home!"

The door opened to reveal a tired looking girl somewhere around her late teens. She wore a maid uniform and her long silky blue hair delicately brushed her hand on the doorknob as she looked down at the violent girl with a frown. "Princess," she says, "how many times have I told you to knock?"

"Nanny, guess what?" the small girl inquired, ignoring her words. Before the maid could answer, the little girl proudly announced, "I adopted a homeless man!"

I looked down at the youngster with a sickened expression while the maid stood unfazed. SeeU seemed to be in a happy mood and introduced me.

"He's super tall!" SeeU shouted, pointing at my direction. "And he's really cranky!"

The maid stared in my direction with her clear blue eyes, and for a moment I thought she could actually see me. But after a while she grinned and played along. "Another imaginary friend?" she chuckled. "What happened to the imaginary cat you brought home a few days ago?"

"No, no, no! He's real! He's really here!" the girl exclaimed.

The maid didn't bother saying anything and took the youngster inside. I managed to squeeze in before the door shut. SeeU was ordered to go upstairs and take her pajamas to the bathroom while the maid prepared the bath for her. It felt kind of awkward entering the house. The house inside was just as grand as the outside. It was big and everything seemed to be shipped from overseas. It's nothing like all the houses I've ever seen.

I stayed in SeeU's room until the youngster came back dressed in a warm pair of clothes, her hair wet and wavy. I made myself comfortable on the couch while SeeU took some stuff out of her school backpack and prepared everything she needed for tomorrow. Eventually the maid, whose named turned out to be Ring, ordered SeeU to come down for dinner and SeeU wanted me to come with her, but I declined even though I was starving. So she went downstairs to eat while I stayed in the room, reclining on the couch to think what I should do about my life. I'm stuck in a time period I shouldn't be in. What if I don't go back to where I came from? How long do I have to live like this?

"Yuuma?" says a child-like voice. I broke away from my chain of thoughts and found SeeU in the room closing the door behind her. I noticed she held something in her hand, and when she saw me looking at it, she held it out for me.

"Here," she said as I reached for it. "Nanny gave me a snack because I ate all my veggies."

"You're giving it to me?" I asked, looking at the strawberry-flavored protein bar in my hand. Once she nodded in agreement, I ripped the bag in half and quickly devoured the snack before I could stop myself. Once I finished, I found her sitting on her bed with a large stuffed tiger resting beside her.

"Hey, are you really from the future?" she asked after a moment of silence.

I shrugged. "I guess so."

She gives me a quizzical look. "It's almost like a dream," she whispers in awe.

"Believe what you want. I don't care."

SeeU sat on her bed and she looked like she was thinking of something really hard. She was quiet for a while before saying, "Does my talking bother you?"

"I like people who talk a lot," I honestly replied, "because I don't."

"So you want to keep talking?" she asked brightly, flashing her bright teeth.

"If you keep doing all the talking then..." I thought for a moment, "yeah."

And so that's what we did.

We talked and talked for what it seemed to be a long time. SeeU kept her promise and led all the conversation without me having to think of one. Her mouth never seemed to stop moving.

It was easy to obfuscate SeeU rather than enlighten her. We spoke the same language, but our words were like Mandarin to Morse code. Body language was no better. I couldn't understand some of her child-talk and her words were a bit obtuse, but luckily for me, SeeU seemed to think the same way. "Why can't you understand?" she would ask despairingly, and I would attack back with the same question.

SeeU always asked questions about the time dimension I came from. She's a little girl who enjoys listening to fictional stories and doesn't hesitate to go on an adventure. She was about to ask me something until the maid entered and ordered SeeU to brush her teeth and get ready for bed. After a while I watched the frivolous young woman tuck the little girl to bed before leaving the room. SeeU didn't fall asleep like I wanted her to do. After all that chattering a while back, I was tired but all she wanted to do was talk, talk, talk.

"Tell me," she said, sitting up in the dark. "What kind of person am I in the future?"

I lounged on the couch with my eyes closed and didn't say anything. When I didn't speak, she leaned closer with her sparkling blue eyes in curiosity.

"What am I like?" she inquired. "Do I get superpowers? How tall am I in the future?"

"A bitch," I answered harshly. The sudden change of my tone startled her, and I even scared myself. Those words left my lips without my approval. "You're different," I continued, trying to change my pitch. "You grow up to be a cold, heartless little bitch." More lies leave my lips. And for a second, I regret lying to her.

The little girl is taken aback and she's despondent of my answer. "Am I really that horrible?" she asks in a small voice.

I nodded.

"How… how horrible am I?" she asks, quivering.

I finally opened my eyes and glanced at her from the side. "You make fun of others and bring misery." I ranted. "And that's about it."

She stares at the stuffed animal beside her bed, and looks like she's going to fall apart. Tears are brimming in her eyes, and I wait for them to escape, but they don't. She holds them in place. "Did I do something to you?" she asks in a small voice.

I nodded.

"Do you hate me?"

I didn't say anything.

"How bad is it?" she asks.

"I don't want to talk about it." I replied.

"Is it really that bad?"

"I still remember pieces of it."

She didn't say anything after that. I waited for her voice, but nothing came. Silence filled the room and I was about to drift asleep until her voice paused it.

"…Help me change," said SeeU.

I opened my eyes. "What did you say?" I questioned, trying to outline her figure in the dark.

"I want to change," she said again, but this time she sounded determined.

"Why should I?" I inquired.

She seemed to think about it for a while. "Because… because I'll become a good girl." SeeU smiled. She smiled a smile so bright it seemed to blind me. "Then maybe people won't hate me!"

"No."

"You'll have a bright future!" she exclaimed, not giving up. "I'll stay away from you so you won't get hurt!"

I didn't reply after that. I guess my silence caused SeeU to grow frustrated and beg for me to help her. It's not long before Ring comes around and orders her to sleep. It's getting late and I hear SeeU mutter something in a different language before doing what she's told. I don't know what she said, but by the sound of it, it didn't seem like a nice word.

Eventually the lights in the hall are turned off and I can hear every little spec in the house and even outside. I slowly get up from the couch and tiptoe over to SeeU without having a second thought. She quietly snores in her sleep and I watch her sleeping peacefully, occasionally muttering random words from time to time. It's not long until I find myself with my fingers circled around her little neck like I'm about to choke her. I press on it, but SeeU doesn't wake up. I watched my hands go through her skin unscratched. I had to pretend she was in pain to satisfy myself.

What an enigma.

It's been a long time since I last published something. I wonder which story I should update next…?