Natsumi returned home in a hurry, closing the door of the house. She then entered, took off her shoes, laying them next to the door diligently after which she began marching into the room.
"Tadaima." Natsumi curtly said, passing the entrance to the kitchen along the hall, intending to carry her backpack to her room. Smiling while she saw her mother.
"Okairi!" A cheerful voice coming from the kitchen answered her; behind the counter, a woman was humming, Natsuki Naoko, cooking tonight's dinner, cutting up various ingredients for the soup.
A middle-aged woman who nevertheless still looked young, she had light brown hair and hazel eyes that held so much warmth despite their scary shape.
Her mom was a housewife, taking care of household chores and working part-time in a vegetable shop from time to time, while her father earned their keep with his good position.
"I'm going to my room to do my homework." She answered briefly and was about to head upstairs, knowing that her mom was about to question her about the details of why she was being home this late.
"Alright, just come down when I call you, it won't be long before your father gets back from work and there will be dinner!" She called out with her positive voice.
"Okay Mom."
The black-haired girl made her up the stairs and opened the door to her room, put down her backpack and sat down at her computer station, then turned it on, forgetting about homework, and fired up an FPS game involving eliminating the opposing team or not letting them plant a bomb. It was called Strike & Counter: GO.
During a game in which she usually did very well, she noticed that her accuracy had deteriorated and she could not focus. This made her feel unsatisfied and she pushed her bangs away from her right eye out of annoyance, allowing her full vision into the screen.
"Damn, something is wrong with my aim tonight. Uwaa, I'm so bad today." She sighed, trying to play some more.
"Hmm." Natsumi tried to shake off her previous dilemma.
After half an hour of playing puzzlingly she didn't want to play anymore, in her thoughts she still had today's meeting with Emiya. However, it was not a thought born of some love at first sight, but one born of the thought that it had been a long time since Natsumi had spoken to someone like that.
While she hated to admit it, she knew this feeling.
She yearned to talk to someone without feeling out of place or downright uncomfortable. Although three years have passed, she still hasn't gotten used to the feeling of loneliness that has prevailed in her life since the beginning of high school.
Her heart ached.
It was easy to forget the pain when she had something else to do, but the moments when she reflected on her decisions came back intensified as time went on.
In elementary school, she came across as an extrovert who had friends being her entire previous class. However, this changed during the break before the start of high school. Her friends stopped speaking to her anymore, and some didn't even write back. She felt lonely at the time lying on her bed and looking at the Internet over the summer break.
So why?
Did she do something wrong? She was the center of attention among everyone and made friends with others, where did the mistake occur? What if everything was a lie and while imitating the behavior of her father, who was a social butterfly, something changed?
She didn't understand this, receiving more and more expectations from her family, and while trying to become like her father, she lost track of herself and what surrounded her. Maybe there were never any real friends, or maybe she was badly imitating her father's traits, after all, who would want to be friends with a fake?
Trying to be herself, however, she was constantly compared to her father, is it wrong to try to be her own person? In high school she committed the same problem, people didn't like her character, so she was only left with a mixture of her enthusiastic father's character, which eventually became part of her after being imitated for so long, but in the end, it only led to her relationships drowning in ruin.
The silence and lack of company truly make people have such gloomy thoughts. She reflected.
Playing games and watching anime over and over in one's free time turned from a hobby more and more into an escape from reality, a way to forget about one's problems while hiding in a virtual reality.
She wanted to cry but found out that she couldn't. She wanted to go out but feared getting hurt.
Natsumi knew that.
She didn't want to be hurt any further, the hole in her heart that had been opened could be forgotten but not patched up by her. There was no time in which this awful feeling wasn't present.
The question remains.
Where should she seek salvation?
.
.
.
No one answered.
While trying to forget about her previous breakdown, her father was back home.
"Welcome this beautiful evening, my dear daughter! How do you feel seeing your father still fully active after work!" Her father hugged and embraced her with a wide grin.
"Dad, you smell." She replied humorously, covering her nose, her father had returned home and was still in his shirt from work.
Natsuki Kenichi was a successful middle-aged man, having combed back his black hair, he was also a man who could convince anyone and befriend them with his positive attitude.
He was her father and someone she respected and looked up to from the early years of her youth
He was a perfect father who took care of his family above all else and always found time for his loved ones. So how was it possible that with someone like that being her father, she turned out to be such a disappointment, one might ask.
"Agh, you hurt my heart 'Tsumi!" He made a face full of anguish, at the sight of which her mother visibly sighed after which she addressed turned around and addressed her.
"I didn't expect I wouldn't even have to call you. I guess you were really hungry, weren't you?" Natsuki Naoko hummed while washing dishes in the sink, "So how was school today, tell mom!"
"Eh- Well, we did the usual assignments in class, there was nothing specific today that was interesting."
"Come on Natsumi, you probably don't think we'll believe something like that. When I was in high school, every day there was something going on to talk about, me and your mother were in a theater club at the time, and believe me I was a brilliant actor, often acting as an antagonistic character destined to destroy the world! Or in your mother's case as Prince Charming, right darling?" Kenichi laughed with a broad smile before looking at Naoko, who sweat-dropped at the sight of his shenanigans.
She replied anyway, seeing him waiting to satisfy his ego, "Of course, of course dear."
The black-haired high-schooler could picture her father trying to imitate Dracula judging by his facial expression when he made a face of mischievousness.
"Yes 'Tsumi! Tell us how things go!"
Natsumi paused for a moment and all her thoughts came to a standstill.
"Oh, look honey. Natsumi is smiling, something good must have happened. Could it be a boy?" Her mother commented, all smiles.
This brought Natsumi back to the world of living, "No-that's not it, just wait a moment!" Seeing that her mother was smiling teasingly in her direction, this one immediately felt in danger, "Why do moms always ask for a boyfriend of all things!" She pouted angrily.
Brown eyes found her knowingly, "So, it's yes after all? Mom always knows best!"
The worst part is that Natsumi couldn't deny it, but her mother probably thought of it in the wrong context.
"Ho~ A Boy-friend? Very interesting, Natsumi, very interesting. Tell us more." Kenichi, on the other hand, even had his teeth bared, like a shark that had found new prey. The gleam in his eye, on the other hand, could send shivers down any young teenager's spine.
Elsewhere, Shirou suddenly got shivers and had a very bad feeling.
"We had a transfer student from London today, his name is Emiya Shirou." She explained, recalling the boy's name and his introduction to the class.
"Emiya... Shirou?" Naoko wondered, making a thinking pose, "But his name sounds Japanese." Added confused woman, and her words made sense, but they were missing the whole story, which Natsumi filled in.
"He used to live in Japan, but had to move to London for some private reasons, he didn't say more" She explained, not noticing the gleam in her father's eye, who suddenly became even more eager to talk.
"Oh, and so you talked to him? I don't accept anyone who doesn't like mayonnaise into our family! You see Naoko, our little star is flying out of the nest!"
"Dad!" If anyone heard this she would burn with shame, "It's not like that, me and him were talking after class when I saw him in Shimada-sensei's classroom. Sensei needed help with the computer in class, so he asked him." She said in a rush, while casting an angry glance in her father's direction, to which the latter only shrugged.
"Oho, so he's good at computer stuff yes?" Asked her father curiously, knowing a couple of IT specialists who knew their trade. In the company he worked for things sometimes broke down from time to time, having a young IT specialist on the job would be beneficial, but he would have to learn more, and above all he didn't want to be intrusive for his daughter's sake.
He wasn't wrong though, Shimada-sensei rarely asked anyone for help, even more from his students, he usually went to the school IT guy, but maybe he wasn't there today for some reason? Not that it mattered.
After a second thought, Natsumi answered his question, "Well, he looked like he knew what he was doing, he looked at the computer and instantly knew what was wrong."
While Natsumi often used the computer in her room, that didn't mean she was an expert in the field. She knew this and that when she needed something, seeing that her red-haired classmate didn't even need to search for the problem on the Internet and without any notifications from the system, he knew what to do right away with just a glance. He was quite amazing by the looks of it, she could never do it so quickly.
This red-haired Ikemen was definitely frustrating.
"And I'm not even talking about how he talks, as if you can hear his lines, he sounds like some shounen protagonist sometimes! His smiles are perfect too! Sometimes I feel like he's glowing all over from the heroic kinda glow he has, what's up with that!?"
Plus those eyes of his seem to see right through her.
Her parents looked at each other, seeing her grumbling, some invisible message let loose between their eyes, though she didn't see it happen.
And then they started laughing, making Natsumi blush much to her horror.
Natsuki Naoko smiled as she saw the apparent change in her daughter's daily behavior, it had been a long time since she had laughed so much and seen her daughter's shenanigans.
Even if the reason was some boy, she was happy to see her daughter smiling. After all, the most important thing for a parent is the happiness of their child.
"It looks to me like there are some interesting stories in store with this boy. Maybe he's your new potential friend to add to the list, Natsumi? From what you say, he seems like a decent boy. I hope to meet him soon." She let her eyes flicker to her daughter with a smile, then began to guillotine seeing her eyes line up in horror and betrayal.
"Aaa, you're making me very awkward right now Mom, you know!" The black-haired girl half-shouted, while her father tried to save her from her mother's teasing, but was himself grinning stupidly which added to her pouting.
But maybe he was not wrong. Could Emiya Shirou be her friend, or is there a possibility that he is different?
If the mysterious boy became her friend, could she change to something better? Is it possible for her to become someone better besides the disgusting Hikikomori closed in a room for days?
The answer lies in time, the question remains whether he will push her away like the others or stay with failure like her until the end. If it comes to the worst, there will certainly be no salvation for her in this life. She will end up locked up in four walls like at that time, before her parents dragged her out of her room.
Time will show.