Interlude 3
In My Misery
I've been thinking a lot over these past few weeks. About what I will do in my future. With everyone, yes, but with you specifically. There will come a year where you'll be away from Japan. What will I do then? Will I have come to grow dependent on you? You once told me something – something about the mathematician. Did you mean for me to hear it? You told me you were dependent on him for the days you had known him, but regretted it now. I thought it was kind of weird at first. Then I realised we were too. Just in a different way. I asked myself what it meant to depend on someone else wholly – am I binding myself to you? Depending too much on you? Is that fair to do? …Do I do it for a reason? I don't know. You already know how confused I can get.
I remember the days after the game. There was an awkward air about us. I knew I needed to bridge that gap – to try and show you that I was willing to understand you like you understood me. Can a medium like a game accomplish that? When I saw how happy it made you, I thought it did. But is happiness understanding? I wasn't so sure – until I realised that happiness was just another part of how I was coming to understand you. Our meetings, our talks, your soothing voice and your kind eyes… they are parts of that bridge too. That bridge of understanding. It isn't the game I derive fun from – it's the way you treat it, talk about it, understand it… that's what makes it fun. I confided in another today. Said I was only playing it to get you off my back. But I don't know if that's true. Is it an obligation to make you happy, or a desire? Is my own happiness… dependent on yours?
I stare into the mirror in front of me. A tiny smile is plastered across my lips, despite all that has happened. I think about your lips for a second. I am unsure why I do that. That smile is proof of what I am. I know that I am confident even in the face of everything now, and that even if I crack I can return to how I was. That isn't fake and I know because that confidence isn't my own. It is the confidence of everyone around me affirming who I am, through words and actions. It is the confidence to tell me my happiness and my jokes are not entirely a persona – that I deserve to show that I am happy. It is the confidence to remain my friend for years, despite becoming aware of how broken we both are. It is the confidence to be vulnerable at a grave in front of me despite having not known me long. But most of all it is your confidence. The confidence that comes from each word, each assurance – every observation and every piece of advice. Every embrace. That is my confidence. And it doesn't matter if it isn't my own. I wouldn't have it any other way.
I remember what you said before you left this room, about how I should talk about the present. Sometimes I think I have been living in the past far too long. But then I think that sometimes living in the past isn't such a bad thing. After all, the past is what gave me so much of my best and worst memories. I can't just forget those. Chances are, I never will. And if I did, I'd feel guilty. But I think you know that. And I know I need to step away from the past, but I just can't. It's like it's an ocean I've been drowning in for years. Wading from its depths would be just as hard as sinking in them. But I know if I did, you'd be there waiting for me. So perhaps you'll just have to wait a bit longer.
I turn to leave this room. To open the door and step back outside into the darkness. To join you again. But a thought stops me. Something catches my eye – a sticker, on one of the wall tiles, for a brand. It's the ridiculously expensive one, with the horse. I chuckle to myself for a second, remembering how amazed that store clerk looked when we could even afford something from there during the Game. He was a nice man. Gentle. Like you. And that's when I remember something else. A pin from that brand. It was weird, even by that place's standards. A man, hunched over, head in hands, on a platform. Weeping? Maybe. It had words engraved on the back – the name of the pin, not notation it was part of a set. 'In My Misery'. Those words… they stuck with me for some reason. I don't even know why – it was just a pin name, after all. We'd seen dozens of pins with eccentric names by that point, so why this one? Why was it so prominent in my mind? I couldn't wrap my head around it then. I don't think I can now, but I'll try, even without you here.
In My Misery. It reminded me of my regrets – of things that I had failed to do myself. That hunched stance on its front was one I had adopted before. Many times now. And its name… it was so open-ended. It was like the first part of a sentence, but that sentence wasn't finished. And it never would finish. Maybe it's something you're meant to finish yourself – like the pin is inviting you to remind yourself of your worst moments. I think that's a cruel way of looking at things. But it's the way I choose to look at them. Maybe I should try finishing that sentence myself – that way I can give myself closure. Stop thinking about something so stupid as a pin we picked up in a life-or-death situation.
In my misery, I hold onto regrets I can't let go of. Every day they find new ways to burrow their way into my head and torment me. I'm scared that they'll end up hurting you. I'm scared because they already have.
In my misery, I fake my own self. I allow myself happiness, but also blind myself with it. That blinding light has dimmed now, with you. When you leave, will it blind me again?
In my misery, I hide my feelings. My grief, my rage, my confusion, even my true happiness. It threatens to tear me from my friends. I even hide how my heart beats from myself. It beats for you.
In my misery… I love you.