STA: Sorry. This chapter was written like a month or two before the last went up, so it was some pretty intense procrastination on my part that they delay was what it was/ I kept meaning to sit down and comb the next chapter to make it consistent with the current trajectory and never had the time. Final chapter actually does have one scene I need to finish still, but I'll try and get it out quicker.

-x-

The first morning, Motoyasu wanted to get up and be functional, but when his birth father handed him his pills and he picked the most dangerous one out and tossed it in the sink, yelling ensued. Even though Motoyasu swallowed all the rest, it was never good enough.

He wasn't living in the world he wanted. He didn't even have access to his computer to stare at some digital copy of that world. He wasn't living his life the way Filo asked him to, following Father's word and striving for a world at peace. He might never see Filo again. Why did he have to put up with poison and lies and lectures and delusions planted in his mind by others on top of that?

Although it wasn't Filo's world, he could still try and bring peace to his own, but how was he supposed to do that if his birth father threatened to call the police on him if he set foot outside without first poisoning himself? Never mind returning to school. He couldn't change courses with his career path so he was better suited to live the life Filo wished for him if he couldn't attend class.

The first two days passed in tense silence, Motoyasu unable to find a solution for his predicament and his birth father staring at him like a filolial chick born with only one leg.

On the third, when Motoyasu grudgingly came out of room for lunch, his birth father went upstairs and stole his mattress, and left it on the living room floor.

On the fourth, his birth father left early to go to work. Motoyasu spent the morning lying on the living room floor, bundled in blankets and fantasizing about moving the mattress back up to his room without finding the energy to do so. Instead, when boredom finally drove him to sit up, he caught sight of the controller to an old game system.

It was a few generations out of date. Once he realized that the popular online games were all computer-based, he stopped spending money on consoles. But consoles had been nice once upon a time. The upshot of having the home to yourself from middle school on up was that your house was always the safe haven for friends to hang out unsupervised, giving him incredible social power back in the day. Having the hang out site for your friend group also gave him an excuse to any pigs he brought home with him as to why he might have video games that totally weren't his thing, but that his friends liked.

Regrettably, that also meant he'd invited pigs over more. And without supervision, he'd engaged in bestiality. Disgusting. His old self was truly shameful. And people wanted him to return to that?

Console games wern't as good as Emerald Online, and Emerald Online wasn't as good as reality, but Motoyasu was trapped in the wrong reality. Even sub-par games served as a distraction from that. He crawled off the mattress to boot the system up, pulled a controller back into bed with him, and began playing a game that he hadn't bothered to eject the disc of in seven years.

He barely made it past the tutorial area before there was a knock on the door,

His birth father would do something like leave work early just to harass him. Probably, the man planned on random check-ins so long as Motoyasu abstained from taking poison.

No. This was the man who ran off to Germany for nine years and wouldn't come home even for holidays or graduation ceremonies. He probably called a neighbor and asked them to check the house without bothering to leave work himself. Motoyasu was still impressed that his birth father was back in Japan at all. Why not ignore it and let the man sweat a little?

Motoyasu proceeded to the next stage in his game as if nothing happened, but the knocking persisted, followed closely after by oinks and squeals.

A glance to the door was all it took for him to see the blinds were open near the front door, and a pig had pressed itself against the window.

Disgusting. He suppressed a shudder and turned his attention back to his game. Soon enough, the squeals stopped.

He made it halfway through the game before he heard his birth father outside, and paused to listen.

"I'm really sorry he did that. He's home recovering from some… trauma. He was attacked, and he hasn't really been himself since. I'll let him know you'd like to catch up with him, but I don't know how long it will be before he's up for spending time with others. Right now, I think it upsets him to have even just me around."

For his birth father's efforts, the pig he was speaking too oinked without even the decency to speak human words.

Yet it was only Motoyasu who his birth father looked displeased with upon setting foot inside.

"Miho came to say hi, but you refused to open the door and greet her."

"Who wants to listen to a pig whine?"

His birth father looked at him as if he said something depressing, then noticed the game. When he looked from the screen back to Motoyasu, he said,. "I'd say it's good you're finally doing something, but… Motoyasu, have you… ever visited any of the locations in this game?"

"Nope. If a world exists out there similar to this game, I, Motoyasu, have never been summoned to save it."

"I see… I'm still not sure you should be playing this."

Wait a second.

Motoyasu paused his game and looked up at his birth father.

"Have we not picked up my computer yet because you think I can't tell the difference between it and reality? I'm well aware that I shouldn't assume the world operates the same as the game, I say!"

Father had taught him to never make such assumptions, and he took all of Father's instructions to heart!

Yet his birth father had the audacity to say, "I just don't want to reinforce any delusions."

"I have no delusion, I say! The game is not real! It's only an imitation of the real world that I traveled to!"

The distinction was so simple. So clear. Why did the man not think it mattered? Infuriating! The whole thing was too infuriating! Motoyasu tossed the controller at the man, only for the cord to keep it from flying far enough to connect with his face.

His birth father pursed his lips and shook his head, and went to the kitchen to silently work on dinner. Motoyasu, fuming, shut his game off without having saved once and buried himself back in his blankets.

-o-

Motoyasu spent two more days more of less glued to his bed before it hit him.

Although the hospital had been concerned first and foremost with how much energy he had, it was no longer the responsibility of nurses to keep him from popping stitches on healed wounds or upsetting the other patients. The three pills he was still taking made him less upsetting to others, but everyone was upset with him anyway, so what difference did they make? Moreover, all of them made him tired.

With his birth father watching, he made a show of taking the two with the mildest side effects and pitching the poison, and while his birth father attempted to salvage that poison from the garbage disposal, Motoyasu quietly threw the third pill in the trash.

The effects were almost immediate. After his father left for work, Motoyasu hauled his mattress back up to his room and, amazed he hadn't done so sooner, took the time to look up the pill he'd thrown away.

It seemed that it was primarily an anti-depressant, but he wasn't depressed. The sadness he felt for his seperation for Filo-tan was despair incarnate, but he couldn't waste time being depressed when he ought to focus on reuniting with her!

The pills were also offered often as a way to help people sleep. In fact, even for other uses, it was meant to be taken at bedtime because it knocked so many people out.

Amazing.

What liars everyone was. The point wasn't to make him more tolerable or cure any illnesses or anything of the sort. They wanted him sedated so he would be easier to control, plain and simple.

If the day went well, he decided he would stop taking that pill entirely.

With that settled, he dug around until he found the old emergency stash of money he kept during high school for those time when his parents forgot to send him his food budget on time, tucked it into the largest roller suitcase he could find, and set off for the train station.

The ride from the hospital back home had felt like days despite him only being awake for a few minutes of it. The ride back to the city took nearly two hours, and he was so eager to reach his apartment that he got off two stops too early.

He didn't have his apartment keys on him. The EMTs forgot to grab those while picking his bleeding body up off the floor, apparently, and his birth father made no attempt to fetch them. No matter. Motoyasu stopped by the landlord's office to explain his situation and was pleased to learn that, while his rent payments had stopped coming in and the apartment was now vacant, his things had been saved. He loaded up his computer and a few miscellaneous items to pad the precious game box with inside the suitcase and set off back home.

Motoyasu nearly set up his computer on the platform waiting for the train. He'd yet to work out how one arranged for their own murder without killing themselves, but he could at least play the game that resembled the world he ought to live in. Anticipation had him so antsy he considered getting off the train early to find a hotel to set himself up in and start playing faster, but he only had money for one or two night's stay.

Besides, his birth father would lock him back in that hospital if he avoided going home. If it were Melromarc, anyone who tried to keep him from the nearest semblance of Filo-tan would be dealt with, but he had no weapons on hand to rid himself of nuisances.

He returned to the house with more than an hour to spare before his birth father's office closed for the day, pleased to not only have completed his mission in time, Motoyasu let himself inside with every expectation that he could have the computer set up in his room before his birth father made it home. The only trick would be getting internet set up. He could use wireless, but for the best connection strength—

His birth father looked from from where he stood by the kitchen phone.

"Sorry, officer. He just walked in… Yes. I'll speak with him… Again, my apologies. This was unusual of him… Thank you. You have a good day too."

"Uh… I… You should still be at work."

His birth father's voice was alarmingly quiet as he said, "You had an appointment today to establish care with your psychiatrist. I came home early to go with you."

"I-is that so?"

"And you weren't home."

"…I came back?"

His birth father looked from Motoyasu to the suitcase he pulled behind him, then back up with an unamused expression.

"I came back! This Motoyasu attacked no one, didn't so much as tell off a single pig for its pigishness, and came back! H-have you not insisted I get out of bed and do something to improve myself?"

"What's in the bag, Motoyasu?"

"Nothing illicit. No! Not merely is it not bad, but something great, This contains a gateway to heaven, I say!"

His birth father was upon the bag before Motoyau could react, yanking open the zipper before collapsing onto the ground with relief.

"Er… Was it not a problem that I went to pick it up?"

His birth father ran his hands along his "No—Yes! Yes you can't just disappear like that. Saints above, Motoyasu, no matter how you may feel, you're not well. Even if you picked this up on your own and made it back without issue, it wasn't worth the risk. I just… Thank God it's not drugs."

Motoyasu had already assured the man that the trip went off without a hitch. There was no reason to talk about it like its success was still uncertain.

Wait.

"Drugs!?"

Wasn't the whole reason everyone was mad with him to do with him refusing to take the drugs they shoved in his face?

"I have no idea what you and those girls were up to that made them stab you! And when I read about things that can trigger such a sudden shift in behavior… Never mind. You're not taking anything you shouldn't. Hell, you're not even taking half the things you should."

It could be said that love was a drug, and Motoyasu was in severe withdrawal. Come to think of it, Motoyasu stepped around his birth father and pulled his suitcase towards the stairs.

"What are you doing?"

A chill ran up Motoyasu's spine.

"I'm going to set my computer up."

"Down here," his birth father instructed. "I'll let it slide this time that we have to reschedule your appointment, and you can sleep in your room so long as you're down here during the day, but the computer will be set up down here where I can keep an eye on whatever you use it for. If I come home and find it anywhere in the house except this room, I will take a hammer to it. Understood?"

Motoyasu glared at his birth father, but pulled his computer out and set about getting it into a workable configuration. He hadn't been allowed to take the spear with him when he was sent home and none of his spells worked anymore, so he couldn't punish his birth father properly for such a transgression. No doubt the man would overreact if Motoyasu played too much because he wasn't engaging enough with the boring non-Filo-tan world. But then he would overreact if Motoyasu abstained from playing because, apparently, it was 'atypical behavior suggesting a disease of the mind' to not have any reason to get out of bed.

-o-

"I told them you needed a male psychiatrist."

Motoyasu ignored his birth father, walking into the house silently and then slumping over into the chair before booting his computer up. He still refused to swallow poison, but for the sake of saving his precious window into Emerald Online, he'd diligently endured the sedative every morning. Getting the computer had provided his birth father with a hostage to hold for certain behaviors, and everything was again tiresome.

What a waste of time all this brain sickness talk was. He had to spend an hour sitting in a room where a pig alternated between snorting at him and squealing while his birth father yelled at it. At least, for once, he and the man were in agreement that pigs were bad.

Login completed, Motoyasu smiled at his inventory. The filolial eggs he'd purchased were finally due to hatch. With his birth father present to see how he spent money, he could no longer shave off bits of his allowance on premium currency to skip the real-time waits, but no matter. It was best to raise a filolial from a chick anyway. Even the anticipation was its own delight. He still ached to meet his new digital children. The grind to obtain them had been especially brutal because his old player character was a pig, and he had to create an all new account to remedy that and save up again for eggs.

"It's only going to take longer to get you real help now."

"Wasn't the point of being held prisoner in the hospital to 'fix' me? They let me go, so I'm fine, I say!"

"They let you go knowing that nothing actually stabilizes you with the understanding that you'd be in my care, with the hope that I could get you to keep trying what cocktails you wouldn't take from the nurses," his father said. "You're half asleep in front of your computer because that's the best they could manage to keep you from getting overexcited and hurting others."

"Hmm…"

His filolial chicks all looked like reskins of one another. He went out of his way to buy them from different ranches with the idea that he might find some bred for racing or fighting or endurance by going to breeders with different aims, yet there were no obvious tells from their general structure as to what they were best suited for because the game designers were too lazy to make more than one model.

"Are you even paying attention to me? Motoyasu!"

Come to think of it, in Emerald Online, filolials had no angel form. They couldn't even grow to their true full size. Should he write to the developers support line about that?

"Motoyasu!" His birth father slammed a hand down on his shoulder, startling Motoyasu so that he dropped his mouse. "I'm going to look for a different specialist for you. If… This may make it even longer before you're able to return to school, but if that last clinic wouldn't listen when we explained your issue, I don't want to take them up on the offer for a fast appointment with another psychiatrist working in that office. I'm sorry about the delay."

Motoyasu shrugged, picked up his mouse, and set about naming his new filolials.

"Motoyasu, say something."

"Nothing's wrong with me. If you want to ship me back to school and wash your hands of me again, you can, I say. But this Motoyasu would much rather do what I'm doing in this moment."

His birth father watched silently as he set out with his new party to level grind, then shook his head and went to an older computer to search for other doctors to throw Motoyasu at.

Direct attention off of him, Motoyasu smiled to himself. Not so much as an attempt from that man to deny his motives. Motoyasu had been right in what he assumed when first summoned. He had no close connections in this world. There had been drinking buddies and pigs he casually mucked with, and there were the parents who didn't want to live with him, and all would move on quickly when he vanished. When he returned to Filo-tan and Father's side, he would do so without a hint of guilt.

He waited until his father had finished searching for clinics and went to make dinner. Then, with no attention on him, he put in a search for places with high rates of crime.

Everyone thought he had some horrible brain disease, but no one mistook him for an idiot. He buried the notes he took among research saved from an old school project and cleared the searches from his internet history after. No doubt his birth father regularly checked the computer for more reasons to treat his son like an invalid, and Motoyasu didn't need anyone getting in his way of going home.

-o-

Dear Mr. Kitamura

Thank you for submitting a suggestion to our development team. We are not currently taking open suggestions from fans. There is an option on our homepage to enroll in notifications for future contests in which fans can submit content. If you are over 18 and have the proper skill set and qualifications, there is also a form you can download for job application.

-x-

STA: I ended up deleting a huge chunk of the original chapter 2 because it was all setup for things that aren't happening now. I wonder what the word count is without that? This was fewer edits than the last chapter though. The main change I had to keep an eye out for was honestly just that changes were consistent with all the significant cuts from last time.