"On the long, winding, shitty road that is life, the next step is both the hardest and most important."

This story's for the people who have helped me through some of my darkest times yet. I love every single one of you.

You, the reader, may be wondering why my chapters are suddenly so short (1 and 2 are both 4k words), and to this I say: quality over quantity.

Chapter Two: Stratocumulus

Naofumi squinted at the screen. "Isn't this just Counter-Strike?"

"Yeah, but someone turned it into a hero shooter."

"That looks like shit. Next."

Jun chuckled. "I had a feeling you'd say that. You never liked shooters much, anyway."

"I like single-player ones," Naofumi countered. "The stress comes from having to deal with other players, not from the perspective."

"If dealing with other players stresses you out, why did you play so many MMOs?" Jun fired back, raising an eyebrow.

"Merching is different from having five other people relying on you to help them beat another six people with better reflexes and more time in the game. That's like saying you can't run a ramen stand because you hated group work in school."

Six months ago - six months as he perceived them, at least - the thought that he'd be hanging out with his brother and bickering about games in half a year's time would have seemed ridiculous, in much the same way as a new couple can't possibly imagine something that would force them apart. Sitting here, now, with Jun several feet away and a not-quite-appropriate poster of a girl with cat ears and a tail pinned to the wall behind him, felt nothing less than surreal, but he kept talking, kept laughing, and hoped that everything would simply go back to normal on its own.

"Naofumi?"

It was a moment before he realized that Jun was waving a hand in front of his face. With a start, Naofumi tried his best to play off the way he'd spaced out - "I'm just tired is all, sorry" - but he knew his brother well enough to tell that Jun wasn't buying it.

Still, they talked as if everything was alright, as if he really had just been tired, and Naofumi was grateful. He supposed, in retrospect, that he should have taken the opportunity to talk things over with the shrink, but he'd been far too busy hating the man to consider such a thing at the time. Although, he reasoned, if I'd tried to open up about missing a bunch of people who don't exist in this world, I'm not sure I would have gotten out as early.

"D'you remember the last VN you played?" Jun asked him.

Naofumi thought about it.

"Grisaia?" he guessed.

"Which one?"

"I only played one of them."

"Well, lucky you, there's more."

Naofumi went to crack a joke. Paused. Remembered the core component of every visual novel he'd ever come across. Shook his head.

"I'm not really feeling VNs right now," he admitted. There was no way he could admit that the thought of simulated romance would only remind him of the budding one he'd lost when Melromarc had decided his time there had come to a close.

"You don't look like you've 'felt' a VN in a long time," his brother countered, leaning over and poking Naofumi's bicep. "Seriously, what's with this muscle? Were you working out in the ward?" A mock gasp, accompanied by the widening of green eyes in mock surprise. "Have you turned into a normie?"

Naofumi stiffened, but tried to smile anyway. It was no use; it didn't reach his eyes. Hell, it barely reached his mouth. Jun's playful grin slid off his face like sap, and he got up from his desk to sit next to Naofumi on the bed.

"What happened to you?" he murmured, but the older of the two could only shake his head.

"There's...it's a lot to unpack."

A pause. Jun placed a hand on his back, offering support but not pressure, and Naofumi was grateful.

"You know," his brother said, "I looked into schizophrenia a bit, once I found out what you were being kept in a ward for, and unless you'd been hiding a lot more from us than I thought, you didn't display any of the symptoms."

"Huh?"

"There's a phase before the full onset called the prodrome. I'll spare you the details, but - there was nothing wrong with you before, nii-san." If Naofumi had been in a better mood, he'd have cracked a smile at Jun's verbal slip-up. His younger brother had, years ago, decided that calling him any variation of "onii" was immature and began addressing Naofumi by name instead, but he'd never quite broken the old habit. "I'm no psychiatrist, but as a general rule, people don't just...suddenly develop full-blown schizophrenia and wander off into the woods."

"I'm surprised you didn't turn to Occam's razor instead," Naofumi returned. "What else could have happened to me in the middle of a public library?" He was, he knew, playing devil's advocate against himself, but the fact that Jun hadn't accepted the most rational explanation for his disappearance struck Naofumi as very, very odd indeed.

Jun swallowed hard. "It's...it's different when you know someone personally. When you're close to them. When you've spent enough time with them and then someone who's never even met them before claims they exhibited behavior antithetical to what you're familiar with."

For just a moment, Naofumi realized that this must have been how Raphtalia felt at the very start of their time together, right after his ill-fated duel with Motoyasu. The person she knew wasn't at all the person everyone else was talking about…

"So...I'll ask again."

Naofumi pulled one leg up to his chest, pressing his lips against the fabric of his jeans over the knee. He knew what was coming next, and he wasn't sure if he was prepared to answer it honestly. The first (and last) time he'd done so, he'd been more or less called a liar and "corrected."

"Nii-san...what happened to you?"

The shaking of Jun's voice was what drew Naofumi's gaze to his brother's face rather than the carpet, and with a start, he realized that Jun was crying.

"Jun - "

"Where did you go?" his brother cut in, lip quivering now. "Why did you leave?"

"Did you think I had a choice!?" Naofumi snapped, getting to his feet, and Jun recoiled, suddenly quiet; it took the former a moment to realize his face had contorted into rage at the threat of pain. The expression fell away in a heartbeat, and Naofumi took a step back, now afraid he'd been the one to cause another pain instead. "I…"

"No, I - it wasn't your choice," Jun interrupted, letting out a long sigh and burying his face in his hands. "That was unkind of me. I'm sorry."

Naofumi forced his muscles to relax. "I'm sorry for snapping."

"That's another thing, though," Jun went on. "The Naofumi I knew would never have responded that way."

The former Shield Hero had to think about that one for a moment. Jun has a point. I was like a worm back then - no teeth or spine. If something bothered me, I'd just apologize for being bothered by it. "Yeah," he admitted. "I'm...not the person I was."

"I'll ask you a third time, then - what happened, Naofumi? What managed to draw that expression out of you?"

A hard, dry swallow.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

Silence, but for the faint noise of the television downstairs.

"Isekai."

Jun blinked at him. "What?"

"I spent two and a half years in another world, Jun." Bizarrely, Naofumi found himself fighting off the urge to laugh; even if it was the truth, saying it out loud made him feel like an idiot.

"You're fucking with me." The blonde shook his head, curls flopping as he did. "Be serious. Please."

"Do I look like I'm fucking joking?" Naofumi retorted, and the urge to laugh slipped away in an instant. "Jun - look at me."

He did.

"That's a lot to take in, nii-san," Jun whispered, expression almost pleading now. "You - you're being completely serious?"

"Do you really think I had a psychotic episode and wandered off into the woods to work out?" Then, without waiting for a response, he took off his shirt, and Jun scrambled backwards, face flushed.

"Nii-san, I - I don't think - "

"What?" Naofumi asked, completely baffled. "I'm showing you a scar."

"I...oh." Breathing a sigh of relief (why?), Jun scooted forward again, eyes narrowed to inspect the scars left by the two-headed dog he'd encountered when Raphtalia was still but a child - the one she'd ultimately found the courage to slay. "What did that?"

"Two-headed dog," Naofumi grunted, as if it were obvious, then he pointed to a mark right below his sternum - a scar left not by physical damage, but by the otherworldly power of a legendary weapon. "And this one's from a spear."

Jun stared. "A two-headed dog?" he echoed. "A - a spear?"

"That's what I said." Probably better not to point out that these are old news. I don't think Jun could take it if I told him I got hit by a "Judgement"-style attack or stepped on by a tortoise the size of a small country.

Naofumi could practically see the gears turning in his brother's head. At length, Jun's eyes found his face again, and he took this as the cue to put his shirt back on. "So?" he prompted.

"It's still a lot to take in," the other admitted. "But...you're not a liar."

...About that, he didn't say. Whatever he'd done in Melromarc stayed in Melromarc.

"It's pretty clear that you didn't just wander off into the wilderness for a year and a half - no offense, but I'm pretty sure you'd have starved or frozen to death," Jun went on, now ticking off each point on his fingers. "You're in a lot better shape than you were, and there are those...scars. And," he added, eyes widening, "there's the surveillance video from the library!"

"The what?" Naofumi blurted out, but he was fairly certain he already knew what Jun was on about, and sure enough, his brother hopped back over to his desk, pulling up Nicovideo and typing something into the search bar.

"There was a lot of effort to explain this away and sweep it under the rug as a hoax," Jun told him, "but the original video's still online. It went viral for a while, even, since you actually disappeared."

Once again, Naofumi was struck with that eerie surreal feeling, though in this case it was a direct result of being told that he'd disappeared. I never really thought about it, since I always knew where I was - but to literally everyone else in this world, I vanished. Iwatani Naofumi disappeared. In that context, "Iwatani Naofumi" didn't even feel like his own name.

Jun scrolled down a little ways, past half a dozen videos with obnoxious titles such as "IWATANI CASE - WHAT REALLY HAPPENED!?" and "THE LIBRARY MAN 3 AM CHALLENGE [REAL]", then clicked on one simply titled "Man disappears in library". Sure enough, there on the screen was an Iwatani Naofumi roughly three years younger and far more naive than the one watching him, engrossed in an awfully familiar book.

Naofumi's heart began to race. He could almost hear the video, even without sound.

Flip, flip. His past self turned page after page.

Tap, tap,. An old woman hobbled by with her cane.

Thump. His past self instantly vanished, and Records of the Four Holy Heroes fell to the library floor.

The video ended, and Naofumi could feel Jun's gaze on him. His brother was clearly expecting a response, but the anticlimax had left him feeling underwhelmed; even his heart rate had slowed back down. "That's it?" was all he could say.

Unexpectedly, Jun burst out laughing. "You just watched your own disappearance and all you have to say is 'that's it'?" he cackled. "I guess I should be glad it doesn't bother you, but…jeez."

A snort. "I don't think I'll ever be bothered by videos of the 'paranormal' again."

A beat. Then -

"So...this other world. What was it like?"

Naofumi thought about it for all of a third of a second.

"Shit," he replied. "That's not to say there weren't good parts, but dealing with the laws and customs in what we'd call a 'fantasy world' is a lot harder than you might think. Especially," he added, and Jun saw something deaden in Naofumi's eyes, "when the royal family decides they don't like you."

"I thought that kind of thing only happened in books and stuff."

He shook his head.

"No. That's a naive way to think. Just because that place is what we'd call a 'fantasy world' doesn't mean the people there aren't every bit as greedy and cruel as they are here. Light novels always paint other worlds as having these epic struggles between light and dark, but think about it." Leaning forward, Naofumi let his elbows rest on his knees. "All the extras, all the NPCs, all the side characters - whatever you want to call them, they're still human. Don't believe for a second that if you meet a king, he's going to be a nameless good guy who helps the hero slay the demon plaguing the land. If you meet a princess, don't even entertain the thought that she might be the heroine of your story."

Jun shifted uncomfortably.

"I think you get my point. Anyway," Naofumi went on, crossing his fingers to use as a chinrest, "I ended up getting dragged in through that book I was reading and got stuck with a shield for a weapon."

"The one you picked up at the library?" Jun tried to sound calm, but Naofumi didn't miss the way his brother's knuckles struck starkly white against his black uniform slacks.

"The very same." Sensing his brother had more to say, he paused with one eyebrow raised, and Jun took him up on this silence.

"What do you mean a shield for a weapon, then?"

Wait, what? "That's your question?" he blurted out. "Have you never played a game with a tank in it?"

"Not the kind of tank you're thinking of."

Naofumi pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Jun."

"Sorry."

"Anyway - I said stuck for a reason. I couldn't fight for myself at all, and I was summoned into a country where the Shield Hero was considered some kind of demon, so that's how I was treated. And," he added, and Jun felt chills run down his spine as his older brother's features darkened once more into those of a stranger, "that's how I started to act."

It took Naofumi a moment to realize that Jun was afraid of something, and another moment to realize just what that something was. Fixing his expression again - he just barely managed to avoid having to push his brow back into place with his fingers - he let out a sigh, preparing for what he could only assume was going to be the first of many apologies. "Sorry. That look's just a really bad habit I picked up. There's nothing to be scared of."

And then, before he knew it, Jun had hugged him again, gentler this time, sadder this time, wetter this time - for his brother had started to cry, hot tears leaking out of the corners of his green eyes, and Naofumi, taciturn as he'd become, could do nothing but stroke Jun's hair and wait for the storm to pass. When at last the hiccups ceased, his brother - eyes and nose now distinctly redder than they'd been several minutes prior - gave him the most miserable look he'd seen on another human being in quite some time.

"I'm sorry," Jun whispered.

"You're sorry?" Naofumi repeated, baffled. "I - for what? I scared you, not the other way around."

Jun shook his head. "No. That's not it. Just - if what you're saying is true - and god, I don't want to believe you, but I do - then all this time, you were suffering, and all I was doing was moping around at home and hating you for not being around anymore."

A pause. Naofumi blinked. "Huh?"

"I was so angry at you," Jun went on, expression twisting with guilt and voice raspy with emotion. "I couldn't believe it at first, then when it sank in that you were gone, I got so mad. Okaa-san and otou-san started fighting all the time. We all stopped talking beyond what we had to. It's like - nii-san, have you ever seen a skeleton?"

Naofumi thought back to the time he'd helped a grieving Raphtalia carry her childhood friend's dusty, decaying bones and clumps of rotting hair from the depths of a dungeon. "More than I can count," he said, expression veiled enough to turn a bride green with envy. "Why?"

"It feels wrong, doesn't it? Like there should be something else around it, but the bones are all that's left."

Wait, when did you see a skeleton? Something told Naofumi this was not the time to ask.

"The way there's nothing left on that framework - sometimes that says more than what that framework used to support. It's like...you don't know what you had until it's not there. It's negative space." Jun met his eyes now, through a fresh round of tears, but he didn't back down, didn't look away. "That's what was left behind when you disappeared. I used to think that's what you left behind, but - that puts too much blame on you. It's not your fault. I knew that back then, too, but…"

Naofumi felt a pang of sympathy for his brother. "But you were too angry," he finished, voice low, and Jun nodded, lip quivering as the first droplets spilled down his face.

"It was easier to blame you for everything, even though I knew somewhere inside that it was the wrong thing to do - but here I am acting like I have the right to just listen to you and talk to you like I didn't turn against you when you needed someone on your side."

Shit. He's really been bottling all of this up, hasn't he? "You're not the one who determines if you've got the 'right' to treat me like a brother," Naofumi pointed out, eyes narrowed. "That privilege is mine. You can hate yourself and pull away all you want - I'm not stopping you from doing anything. That's not on me. But if I were in your shoes, I'd take even a cat's paws for support."

Silence fell between them, and for a moment, he was looking not at Jun, but at himself, kneeling before Raphtalia on the dusty floor of the Melromarc royal arena with the pain of betrayal in his heart and leaking from his eyes.

Jun ran his hands through his hair, trying to steady his breathing. With a final attempt at a smile, Naofumi clapped a hand to his shoulder, giving it what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze.

"Just think things over for a little while," he suggested, trying to keep his voice as soft and low as possible. "I'm a room away, and I'll probably be home most of the time until I sort out going back to school." That's the only option left, isn't it? It's not as if the Shield is going to turn up and I'll find my true purpose again as I'm forced to protect Earth or whatever.

"Okay. Are - are you coming downstairs for dinner today?"

It had been several days since Naofumi had returned home, but he hadn't yet found it in himself to eat with his family, choosing instead to reheat his serving in the microwave oven after they'd all gone to bed. (His mother, he remembered, had been very much against the idea of a microwave oven, calling it an 'unnecessary expense', but its sleek design and ability to rapidly heat cups of tea swayed her in the end.) "No. I'm...still not ready for that. I can't stand the way otou-san looks at me." He didn't know why their father seemed so uncomfortable around him, but it wouldn't surprise him at all if it turned out that Iwatani Katai didn't like being around the mentally ill.

"I...okay. I'll talk to you later, then."

"Yeah."

How is it possible for time to move so quickly and so slowly at the same time?

On the previous Monday, Naofumi had submitted a form to his old college seeking readmission, figuring his special status as a former cold case would spark a little sympathy from the admissions office. It was now Friday, and since the processing time had been explicitly stated as up to ten business days, Naofumi had spent the week so far more or less counting down the time until the next Friday. He still didn't think he was ready to try and read anything or play games - come to think of it, I'm surprised I can still read kanji after spending so long reading Melromarc's language - but taking walks had proved a relatively effective way to kill an hour or two every day, even if he'd grown very tired of getting barked at by the neighbors' Shih Tzu.

"Oh, shut up," he groaned, jamming his hands into the pockets of his hoodie as the fat little mutt yapped and yelped, bristling at the cast-iron gate that separated its vicious teeth from the cuff of Naofumi's jeans.

The elementary schoolers from further up the street no longer waved to him. The fact that they were older than he remembered them being paled in comparison to the drastic change in the way they now treated him - silent, shrinking stares as they scurried to avoid him, hunching down like overgrown rats. He didn't try to wave or smile the way he used to; there was no point, and besides, he didn't feel like taking his hands out of his pockets.

It's funny. It feels like just yesterday I was lamenting that it wasn't Tuesday, and now it's Friday.

A rueful little smile crossed his lips. Overhead, cherry blossoms swayed in the early April breeze.

If he was honest with himself, he was dreading the results of his application. If he didn't get back in - even though, he knew, there's not really a reason for me not to - beyond next Friday lay an empty, gaping void the likes of which he'd never before encountered. The name of this void was "being a NEET", and such an endless, boundless pit of purposelessness terrified him in a way he couldn't articulate. He'd rather go for another round against the Demon Dragon, even in his current state.

A falling cherry petal stuck his nose on its journey to the ground, and he sneezed.

On the way home, he stopped by the convenience store to pick up a drink and a snack each for himself and Jun. While sorting through his personal documents and accounts, he'd discovered that for a few months after his disappearance, his parents had continued to deposit money into his account, so he had a few yen to spare for these sorts of things, and as he left the store with a bag in each hand, a thought struck him.

"They never set up an automatic deposit or anything," he murmured, fixing the pavement some fifteen feet ahead with a piercing, unseeing stare. "So that means…" That means they kept depositing money into my account for at least a month or two after I disappeared. He didn't know how to feel about this; on the one hand, their relationship had averaged a cold distance in the time between his rescuing Jun from delinquency and his disappearance, but on the other…

Did they keep doing that hoping I'd be found?

The thought was strange, foreign. It didn't make sense, didn't line up, didn't fit, yet - barring his personal biases - it was the only explanation that did all three of those things. And, he had to admit, it's not like I haven't done things like that myself - helping people but trying hard as hell to come across like I don't care about them just to avoid getting close. Shit, otou-san and I might have a lot more in common than I thought.

He paused, then turned on his heel and went back to the convenience store to pick up another set of drinks and snacks.

This time, they weren't for himself or Jun.