Junpei Iori 16/01
The atmosphere in the dorms feels similar to the one at home. The fear is oppressive, creeping into your bones, like the cold on a damp day. It's hard to breathe, like the time dad shoved you to the side in his haste to get to the bathroom, and it knocked you to the floor and stole the air. You remember lying there, gasping without truly breathing it.
It's not the intense fear you felt when you decided that the all night convenience store was safer than home that night only to encounter shadows. No, this is the type of fear you drown in. Slowly stagnating, as it drives you mad, as it drove dad to drink over his part time jobs and the failed economy. Sometimes he blames the economy, and other times he blames himself, but there was always something to blame.
You've sworn that you never want to be your father, but boy do you understand him right now. You want a drink, even though you never want to drink again. Too many memories of hunger hazed by alcohol when you were younger, it makes you sick to think about. Still you crave the unclarity, the haze of indifference.
No one knows what to do with the information Ryoji gave. That in defeating the full moon shadows, you have brought the end with a certainty as sure as a waterless fish. All gasping for air and flopping around, no water in sight to save them. The fish is doomed, like anyone else really. Water can't save them. The world is ending. The spirit will be lost.
Everyone is frozen with that thought. We are going to die. You are going to die, and it will happen on the day everyone else welcomes in the new year. You've feared dying before. Come close to dying in Tartarus as you point the cold metal of the evoker against your head and summon. It's not that you have never thought you would die. But it's a far off concept, like having a job one day, or owning a house. Not happening today.
It's in the future, and the future is unrealistic. Each day brings about a sort of sameness, you go to school, you make it through the day, and you leave. Sure there are variations, but rain, snow, or shine, it's the same people, and the same situation. It's the same thing, and it doesn't really matter what you do to the overall picture, but what you do in the little box in your life mattered to you.
You thought that going to Tartarus mattered. Mattered to everyone, knowing or not. It felt like you were doing something real and worthwhile with your life, so you kept going out to fight, fear a familiar companion by your side.
Now it feels paralyzing, the indecision that wars with the impatience as all the what ifs bounce around in your brain. What if you had been nicer? What if you had asked more questions? Could you have changed anything? How could it have ended if you hadn't pretended to be something that you are not? Would Chidori be alive?
Not even the exams you are supposed to be studying for can take your mind off it. It would almost be a relief to be worried about something so mundane, if it were helping. But it's not, all the tension trapped inside of you is fit to burst. Something has to give, and it might soon be you.