Well my posting schedule is such a meme, but please be considerate to me, I'm progressing deep into my university year, and was also offered a scholarship for my effort in the last few terms, so I've been grinding the dirt here. I will definitely continue the story, no matter how long it takes, but you probably would not see these chapters pumped out so frequently like before. So I apologize in advance and really thank you guys for your patience.
Now onto this new chapter...before you complain about how I made you guys wait almost 3 months for a short 3k chapters, I apologize as well. I really don't know how to progress to the next arc of the story after that whole Yuuki confrontation. These writer's blocks kept hitting me one after another like a sledgehammer, so this is the only result I could bring out. Just a bit of development and a plot point which will be addressed in later chapters. At this rate, I hope that I could finish this story by chapter 25-26 something, I don't know. But for now enjoy the chapter and please forgive my uncreative mind for now. Have a nice day!
Chapter 13: A Step Forward
Met, as my eyes began to take visions again, a bright flash. A leak of light, like a paint, dropped on the black canvas, with hues of seven rainbow colors, all mixed in one droplet. As I opened my eyes fully, to let the real world fully indulge in me, all the colors began to merge into one. The one pure white of the ceiling light hanging above me.
It wasn't common of this site to be seen as my first after a period of time in the virtual world. What usually followed was darkness and the quiet and heartless rhythmic ticks of the clock on the wall. Now it felt like something had filled this room with the brightness I needed but completely unaware of for the last twelve months, even though the clock had struck pretty late into the day.
"Waky waky!"
As I expected.
"What a welcoming committee I see." I said snarkily.
"Well, I've been quite lonely for the last few hours because you ditched me for your girlfriend in there." And she did not hesitate.
"Like I said Nariko, give me a fucking break."
"And like I said Hirano-kun, never in your LIFE."
This would never end. Well, it is my new life now…
I heard the growl in my stomach. The clock finally ticked seven. I hadn't had my dinner yet, so I'd better get going. But as my hand reached for the visor wrapping around my eyes, the muscle began to strain. My back felt weak, and my neck was irritably blocking my ventilation. And yet the Amusphere was barely my forehead level. I tried pushing harder, just a few more tries before my neck fell onto the bedsheet, unable to take the gravity any longer.
"My my." I heard Nariko's voice coming from the door. And the footsteps too, getting closer and closer. "There we go." Before removing the Amusphere off of my face effortlessly.
"Ahh, thank you." I said.
"Now you're ready to taste my masterpiece."
All of a sudden, I felt the weight on my shoulder beginning to be released through my back and my knee. Nariko lifted me up and turned my body around to a sitting position right beside my bed before she went into the kitchen and carried out a tray full of dishes. The steam swirled in front of her delicate face, the allure of the food was getting more powerful by the second.
"There we go." Nariko said as she placed the tray down on a small coffee table before dragging the whole thing right next to me. Then she also sat down on the other side of the table. "Have a bite, and tell me what you think."
My eyebrows raised. Before me was, honestly, not a very complicated meal that I had the impression from her. It was simply grilled fish with teriyaki, a large bowl of salad and some chicken potato curry. But anything to calm a growling stomach after a whole day I'd take. I grabbed the utensils slowly with my shaky hand and gradually made my way.
"Hmm…" I carefully cut the piece of fish and placed it cleanly inside my mouth. "Hmm!"
"Hmmmmmm?" Nariko glanced sideways with narrow eyes. "If you like it, just spill it. I know you do."
"Well, I'd be tempted to say no. But that would be disingenuous." I replied. "It's wonderful."
"Hmph." She snorted teasingly. "Don't underestimate a well-trained homecare nurse."
I rolled my eyes before finishing the piece of fish, before moving on to the next dish: the curry. I dipped the spoon onto the bowl before lifting it up a heavy piece of chicken and soup. Heavy for me that is. It took a considerable amount of effort just to lift that spoonful up, not to mention balancing it. Every shake the soup began to spill out of the spoon and fell onto the bowl again. Not wanting to spill it onto the table, I leaned closer to the bowl to catch the piece cleanly poured into me.
Nariko wasn't a few seconds away from looking away, even while she was having her own dinner. "You know I can help you with that." She offered.
"I'm alright for now." I smiled back at her as I took another spoonful.
"You're alright? Well ok." She shrugged her shoulders. "But you know that later on, it will be happening anyway right?"
…
…
She made it sound so nonchalant, yet it hurts.
That woke me up. I stopped in my tracks. The statement couldn't have been any more accurate. Yeah, this would not last very long for me. In fact, it would probably fly away in a blink of an eye. Last month, I could do fine with normal walking distance to school, to cook for myself and to use the Amusphere, but in recent days, such simple task had become too straining. Maybe the next thing I knew, I would be sitting in a wheelchair, unable to move or even close my eyes. It was inevitable. The reality was that, and I knew it. And I had accepted it. Where did that acceptance go?
Silently, I swallowed her word with a nod before continuing to eat the rest of the curry. Suffice to say, our dinner did not go on as eventful as before, but a long but comfortable silence. And so along with my long day. From my meeting with Nariko and my family, along with the fact that she would now be living with me in my house, to the little talk with Yuuki inside ALO, I would probably prefer a good night's rest. It was still pretty early, but still.
"So where shall I be sleeping tonight now that the bed's not here yet?"
Nariko's inquiry also stopped me. Yeah, I totally forgot about it. It was my fault really. That information was conveyed to me a week ago but I totally discarded it into the forgotten synapses in my brain that it never came up to me during the last few days, only to be brought up now, leaving me choking in my own breathing.
"Uhh…" I really was failing the lying test. "I think you can sleep on mine…"
"Ohh, I see how it is~" She crossed her arms as if she has caught prey in her paws. Oh shit. She did catch it. By my own carelessness!
"No no, I don't mean we'll be on the same bed!" I defended myself, quite pathetically I'd say. "I mean I can sleep on the sofa and you on the bed."
"And do you think I'd let you do that?" She convincingly shut me down. "Remember I'm a nurse. I'd get fired if they know I let a patient sleep on a sofa while I comfortably sleep on a cozy bed."
Yeah, I forgot that I was the more vulnerable one here. If this was my normal me, I'd do that without a second thought, but considering I could not even take care of myself properly by myself, I'd probably be best to receive the highest treatment. As far as my moral code goes, I should grow to accept that.
"Well, considering you probably haven't thought about it, how about I sleep on the sofa instead?"
Since I was err-ing like a total fool, I had no choice but to accept the proposal. I had no idea of any other alternative resting place that could actually help with our lack of bed crisis, aside from the sofa or the floor, to which the first option made the second feel insane.
Nariko simply shrugged before proceeding to clean up the dinner table, helping me up in the process. While she was doing what I was supposed to do normally, I sat back down on my bed and read a couple of books as I let time pass by, and let the natural workers to build some sandbags in my eyes before I got sent off into sleep by the fatigue from the day. A long day, but a day I think I learned something. Or be reminded of something.
Accepting help really wasn't a bad thing…
The next week.
"Hmmm?"
Among the void emptiness of the entire lab, the insignificance of me and my professor was apparent. The tutorial had ended hours ago. Students were already beginning to make their way back to their home to rest and refill themselves up with energy to prepare for the next couple of days filled with exams and assignments to be finished. The professors as well. Some of them were scrambling to their next class, preparing their lectures, exams and, for a few, making for their office hours to make student's life a little easier, if they could. Others wanted to make do with the little free time they had in preparation for their lecture the next day. Here, the life of students and teachers weren't that different. But despite embracing such a lifestyle himself, the professor surprisingly was patient enough to stick around until I finish my work. It was just like the other day, but it felt strange that he would devote so much of his precious time just watching a weak-muscled student trying to accomplish a normal painting.
"Well, a girl walking down a seemingly endless road, mountains behind them, under the soaking rain." He muttered. "No hesitation, no fear and full of resolution."
I watched as his eye expression changed. From a slit of a needle to as large as a marble, then curved like the ocean wave. Every change also changed my heart rate. This wasn't just a normal generic college instructor. His name is Hirotaka. Once famous with his unique and wonderful technique of using mosses as paints to create a lively and realistic image, and there were great reasons for it. I truly admired the creativity in such a single concept that the man was capable of generating. I could go on more about it, but long story short, after his prime days and gradual decline in quality and block, he decided to switch to a teaching position in colleges in Hokkaido. And the rest was history.
I didn't just want to pass his course. Of course, that would have been simple. I wanted him to know who I was. If my art career was to begin, if it actually could, I would have to start somewhere. And where better than a person who had such a long experience such as Hirotaka. I wanted to know his tricks, hear his pieces of advice, and most importantly to reach out to those he knew. This world's success did not only rely on hard work but proper connections as well.
"It's rather narrow of interpretation that it's kind of boring." He commented bluntly it stung a bit. "But I'll still give you the credit for following what I said the entire lecture. Your artistic talent is your saving grace."
"Did I?" My voice beamed up a notch. "I thought that was not enough for you."
Hirotaka walked up to the instructor's desk and proceeded to write something on his notebook as he gave me this remark. "The reason why I emphasize it much on sending the message in their work is that some art students do not have the same capability as the person next to them. But everyone has a morality, beliefs, and values they truly believe in, and perhaps want others to."
"Sometimes an art piece could still be great without the special fancy techniques." He mumbled, before turning over to me seriously. "But Hirano-kun. Since you are a person longing for an ambitious future, remember that a truly great artist is the one capable of both. There is nothing nobler of an artist to use his talented expertise to remind the world of value that they are lacking."
"..." It took a while for me to respond. His words of wisdom really was not a shallow hand-waving advice. It was almost true to my own observation as well. There are many artists out there, creating many different forms of masterpieces, not just limited to a stiff canvas on the wall, both to serve an application purpose or just to entertain the normal audience. But there aren't many of those who used such powers they have earned for spreading the values of humanity that we always cherish when we were all kindergarteners. And unsurprisingly, they are the ones who earned the legendary status among the community they are in.
But that wasn't just the point.
"You know what my dreams are?"
I said, never would have expected. The professor simply chuckled as he sat down on his desk again.
"I know who my best students are, and what they stand for." He said. The feeling when he said I was among the best students was rather wholesome and blissful. The best students of a once-famous artist. It definitely wasn't easy.
Hirotaka then opened and looked into a drawer under his desk for a quick second. Taking out something similar to a leaflet, he stood up and walked over to me.
"This is all up to you to decide, but if you want to start your career, the best place would be here." He said.
"What is it?" I asked.
"The annual exhibition for young talents." He answered. "This is just like the average contests that you see in middle or high school, but of a higher level. Though many participants I notice in previous contests are usually seniors who are about to graduate, so it's gonna be tough."
"It looks fun and all, but how is it going to start my career?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"Since it is for talented college students, they are close to getting out to the real world of work. So companies and art critics will be present in this place to seek out the best of all the players in this contest. If you could manage to catch their attention, then you'd be a step ahead of many artists who is trying to get their names out there.
He continued, as he held the leaflet open right in front of me, with gestures asking me this 'what do you think?' question.
What do I think about it? It would be a question of not just my artistic career but also my personal life as well. This would be a challenge of not just my personal time, but my physical effort as well, since I had ALS, to which it was already a lot difficult to do anything simple, not to mention paint. Of course, I had been doing it quite frequently in recent days, but this was on a whole different level. Those paintings that I had been doing recently was garbage comparing to the level that was needed to attract critics. I would have to push harder with implementing ideas in a different way or even techniques that I had to master again. My mind was flooded with uncertainty. The ALS thing wouldn't let me go that easily. What would be the point of joining an art competition if I knew I was going to die in the next couple of years? All of the efforts would be for naught, and the attention that the people would be giving me would soon turn to pity and regrets.
But still…do something differently…that was what Yuuki told me. And I had. I had picked up the brush again, not with just a monotonous desire to pass the day, pass the course or get a degree, but with passion and love for art. I decided to do the things I love until the end of my days. So why not this? What if I wouldn't die in the next few years? It would make the doctors' words at the hospital sound insane. But what if, by a miracle, I managed to live just a bit longer than I should be? If I had decided not to play by my own passion, wouldn't it be a waste of my own talent?
'Yuuki…'
For some reasons, I remembered her. Her story of her trying to live her days to the best, establishing a guild with her older sister to make new friends since she could not manage with her normal circumstances. She certainly did not waste any future by saying that she could not do it. Yuuki did exactly what she wanted to do, regardless of the wildly uncertain future, so why shouldn't I do what I am passionate about?
"Thank you, professor."
A little hesitant at first, but all determined, I took his leaflet.
"Follow the instruction on that paper for registration. The deadline for submission is 6 weeks from now. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in class, via email, or just look it up on the website. I really look forward to seeing your work."
With that said, the professor packed up his stuff and left the room. I followed suit after, meeting up with Nariko to be escorted home.
I didn't know what the future holds me now with this cursed disease that no one could actually prepare for, but I wouldn't know unless I try. I knew better now. I'd rather die trying than live in peace and complacency.