After the way I acted, here she was confessing to me yet again. What an absolute idiot i've been. I couldn't help but let out a light chuckle. This situation was so absurd. On top of that, she was misunderstanding what I wanted to tell her. How I was planning to be the one to do what she just did. Honestly, I'm no match for this girl - she keeps blowing me away time and time again.
She noticed my light laugh and responded: "W-Why are you laughing?! This isn't a joke! I-I'm being serious here, you know!"
"No, no, no, I'm just astonished by how right you are with everything you said. More than that: How amazing you are. I can honestly say that I'm too lucky of a guy to even know you, much less have you feel this way about me. I swear, I feel like I don't deserve you." I said with a smile on my face.
Yuigahama didn't seem to expect to hear all of this. Her face had turned beet red. I was sure she wanted to say something.
"Yui, you might have misunderstood what I was planning to say earlier. I want to tell you the truth and this time I promise you no masks or lies.
From the moment we have met, I've subconsciously compared you to the distant sun - Warm, radiant, full of brightness, but at the same time too distant to reach. Meanwhile, I've always felt lost in my own world of darkness for one reason or another.
At first, I thought our talks, our times spent together were nothing more than you being friendly to me, a loser stuck in place. I didn't think you could be my friend much less anything more. Yet, as time passed, I couldn't help but have thoughts of something more.
I reminded myself of Icarus. I felt I knew what the result would be. I felt afraid of the pain which it would cause to the both of us, so I ignored signs and feelings. Despite this, I would often find myself wondering if Icarus would have still followed through with his dream even knowing the result.
When you told me how you feel, I couldn't help but feel like the whole thing was a mirage. Worse yet, a prelude to a nightmare in which we would both get hurt and could never go back to smiling together. I know these words sound like excuses. It isn't fair for me to make them or to wipe my hands clean with the assumptions which drove me to behave the way I did.
I've been lost in hate for myself and the world around me for a long time now. I've blamed the world and how it isn't perfect. I've blamed people and how horrible some of them choose to be. I've blamed reality for making me into a person who can only hurt others. Whether this was the case or not, I chose to give up on many things, including my feelings, which I once felt dear to me, and be this type of person. In the end, I am responsible for myself and I found that I was the one hurting myself the most.
I realise all of this, yet, I continue living with it. I don't want to anymore. I want to open my heart and stop hurting the people around me. I want to dream without fears, be better for myself and for others... Most of all I want to allow myself to be happy and I want to make others happy. There is a sun I would like to reach - one particular girl I would like to find this happiness with.
No more beating around the bush. It's you. I sincerely lov-"
I was interrupted before I could finish speaking up by an odd sensation. Whether if was by chance, by fate, or simply the lack of proper orientation and markings due to the snowed up streets, we had wound up having this conversation near the middle of the road. I hadn't paid much attention since the streets were empty and anyways it would be hard to imagine anyone driving in the current conditions.
It's never good to simply assume things, after all, as our conversation had proved, from time to time, surprises tend to happen. Sometimes more often than not.
A sudden chill had hit me harder than the deafening, howling wind which appeared out of nowhere. It wasn't caused by the cold or the jitters of the moment itself, rather it felt like it was my body reacting to some sort of premonition. Honestly, it's funny how a person is able to lose track of their surroundings when lost in thought or caught up in the moment.
Even if only for a second, the next thing you know you could find the environment has drastically changed. I turned my head left, drawn towards an odd light glistening on the nearby snow. I imagine I could have picked up on it earlier if only I had paid more attention. Almost as if appearing out of nowhere, the gears in my head started clicking rather fast due to the place of the lights origination.
The curiosity quickly turned to horror. The wind had masked the sound of two cars, racing through the snowy roads at high speeds as if they were on their private racetrack. They drifted the corner and next thing we knew, their headlights were coming from in front of us. At that moment, Yuigahama and I were nothing more than deer in the headlights - both paralyzed in place from surprise, questing whether or not this was real and if we'd actually get hit.
The ever familiar slowing of time kicked in. One of the drivers managed to react and forcefully sped out as best he could, planting his car in the tree closest to the sidewalk. As for the other driver, he didn't seem to have the same ability.
He too seemed to be just as dumbstruck as we were. There was a hard grind, as if he was doing his best to bring his car to a brake, but his original speed in combination with the lack of traction between the tires and the frozen road meant there was no chance the car could slow down, much less stop properly.
The formula for disaster had done its job, a collision had become unavoidable. The problem was that the car wasn't going to hit me; almost as if possessed, it was aligned on course to hit Yuigahama. When I realized this, I felt my blood become a convoluted mix of ice and fire, fueled by fear and adrenaline.
My body moved on its own, going with the first solution which came to mind. My muscle tissue expanded, exploding with power as I burst forward, with one goal in mind: push Yuigahama away as hard as I could. I had to make sure I could get her as far out of the way as possible.
Her gaze had now drifted towards me. On her face, she had a look of despair and sadness, as if she had realized that a tragedy was about to unfold. I couldn't tell if it was due to the way things had turned out, or she knew what I was about to do, filling her with a horrible case of deja-vu from the incident seasons ago.
Regardless, the look most certainly did not fit her sunny personality. I didn't want to ever have to see her make this sort of face again. I told myself that I would definitely make sure to chastise her about it when I get the chance. To do that I needed to make sure there would be another chance. I need to put her out of harm's way.
My push made sure she flew back. The ice helped glide her even farther away from the inevitable result. In my case, my sneakers finally couldn't maintain the traction needed for my balance. The very same ice, which saved her, made sure I slipped at the very moment I shouldn't.
Once again, it seemed like my luck had run out on me. A cruel joke, stuck in the middle of divine tragedy and comedy, started performing it's mad little act. Time was up and the curtains lifted. What followed felt like it was something out of an opera drama. So much so that I couldn't help but feel the slow music play as the scene unfolded:
The car couldn't stop and I couldn't get away. I made it to my feet only to have them swept up in the air. A soft crescendo of violins in my head seemed to mask the sounds of my body connecting with steel and glass at high speeds. It is best compared to rolling down a hill, griped by the fast spin of the inertia of your weight and the speed of acceleration.
As I bounced and spun, I caught a glimpse of the the driver. His face carrying a mixture of fear and regret. I could tell that it wasn't his intention to run me over or for any of this to play out like it did. It all seemed like a choreographed sequence of animation, with everything having been decided before it had even started. From here on out, time flickered between fast and slow. My body bounced from end-to-end of the car - front, windshield, roof and the trunk.
I swore I could hear an audience menacingly laughing in a theater someone far away. Surely, I felt I had to be entertaining some greater power with this misfortune of mine.
Next thing I knew, the spinning came to a sudden end. I couldn't feel a thing while I was bouncing like a pinball, but the moment I landed on the packed ice road, the pain set in as my head performed one final bounce off of the ice.
A rush of pain made me think my skull had cracked in several places. My vision quickly became clouded by a dark red color. I couldn't move, but I felt a sticky wetness accompanied by the uncomfortable sensation like that of when you put on wet clothes in the winter. This was the feeling of having blood escaping from my body from multiple places. Worst of all, I could have sworn I felt the gushing sensation of blood spewing from my head and my neck.
I heard a shriek of terror coming from the direction of where Yuigahama had ended up. I could have sworn I heard my name being called out. Everything felt blurring - my vision, sounds, reality. I tried to respond but my lips wouldn't move. It wasn't just my lips, my entire body refused to listen to what I wanted from it. The only thing I could do was stare into the snowy distance and blink.
Within a few blinks, Yuigahama appeared in my area of view. From what I could tell, she seemed to be fine, without anything more than a few scratches on her. With every snapshot, she got closer to me, and with every one of them my eyes felt heavier and heavier. Next thing I knew, she was knelled down next to me as my vision started fading to black. Time seemed to dissipate, just as it had in the schoolyard earlier in the evening.
The last images I remember were those of Yuigahama crying. Her image was basked in the street light shining over her head as the gentle snow fell around us. In that moment, she looked more like an angel than ever before.
I wish I could have properly told her how I much I loved her...
The words "If you stick to your ways, you won't be able to help anybody when you want to most." drifted through my head.
In the end, I couldn't do much. I didn't achieve anything significant, nor did I leave a lasting impression to more than a handful of people. This life is equal to a tree falling in the woods. Though, despite this, I found something important when I needed to: I found myself again. And despite the warning words, I achieved what I wanted most, when I wanted to most: Make sure Yuigahama would make it safely through this night, and would be around to find the happiness she deserves.
This, in itself, was enough for me.
I could have sworn I heard her mutter something as her tears fell down towards my face.
My eyelids fell to a final close. The all too familiar darkness embraced me once again.
There is a saying: "If you want something badly enough, the universe has a way of granting you the opportunity to have it".
There is also a saying: "Be careful what you wish for because it might end up coming true".
These exist to remind us that everything is within our reach; for better or worse. What we choose to do with this great power can decide if we might become the equivalent of God or the Devil. Due to this, it's difficult to decide whether or not the world is a reflection of a biblical Heaven or Hell. Supposedly, the world is somewhere in-between, so it would make more sense to think that it is the halfway point for either or simply a combination of the two.
Whether you have an opinion on this or not, I think it's safe to say that you can at least recognize that this world is neither a fair nor forgiving place. 'Good' doesn't necessarily triumph over 'Evil'. There are no redos or guaranteed 'Happy Endings' for anyone.
A person comes into the world with cries and screams, born with a clean slate, and they end their journey trying to clean it as best you can before exiting with a soft whimper. As you fades, you'll find yourself tallying up all your achievements and your wrong-doings, trying to condense and scale them against common morality, seeing if your life was 'Good' or 'Bad'. Let me spoil what you will find in the end: A large shade of gray.
We are all as 'Evil' as we are 'Good' and every life is significant just as it is insignificant. The truth is, as the flames of your life die down, no gates of Heaven or Hell will await you. There will be no judge, jury or persecution; There will only be you and the mirror of reflection - your life flashing before your eyes, as you relive everything one last time as a form of a funeral to the skin you are shedding.
You may be wondering why I am telling you this - Why I am burdening you with such a harsh truth? It's rather simple - I want you to accept who you are and live a better life. Try to have as few regrets as possible, try to understand others better, fight for your happiness until the end and most important of all: live a colorful life, so when the grays set in you'll have all the beautiful colors of your life in your final memories.
My name is Hikigaya Hachiman, I was born on a warm, August night, underneath the starry-sky. I came into this world with a clean slate. My mother held me in her arms, tears of joy streamed down her face as she wished that I'd find happiness and joy in my life. I, on the other hand, was crying my lungs out from fear, almost as if knowing what awaited me in this world.
In my short, yet long 18 years of life, I managed to change and adapt as a person hundreds of times. Notably, in that time span I grew conscious of myself as a living being, I learned how to speak, how the world and society worked, how to be loved and how to be hated, how to bear being hurt and how to hurt others, along with an almost immeasurable amount of other things both significant and insignificant.
It's honestly hard to share with you who I am and what I've seen, yet I think you might be able to understand this difficulty of mine. I'm sure most of what I have to say, we have in common just with variations in the details. We are visibly so different, yet we are the same at the base and how we grow. Despite these similarities, we couldn't be more different because of the little things we experience and the environment around us.
What a cruel, yet beautiful joke of a mathematical equation this life is. At the very least, we know what kind of end awaits us all. Whether one burns out like a star at its brightest or if we slowly fade out like a candlestick in the dark, we all find an end to this ethereal dream.
How odd it all is...
With this the photo-real of Hikigaya Hachiman, trapped in the cold and lonely winter, came to an end.