It was already Friday morning, and in the Nobi house it was another day before Independence Day, Doraemon was asleep in the closet when suddenly a loud scream was heard in the room that woke up the mechanical cat, that scream was Nobita's, so upset Doraemon opens the closet door with a bang "BUT WHAT HAPPENED?!" The boy was sitting on his futon while he was holding his chest as he was having a attack "What, so early?!"
Doraemon comes down from the closet and approaches Nobita holding his shoulder. He also notices that he was tearing. "Calm down, you will be fine, inhale and exhale deeply." The clumsy boy does what the mechanical cat told him and little by little he begins to calm down until he already recovers "Okay, that's it." Doraemon can't help but cross his arms worried "This week the attacks have been more continuous, that worries me. Did you have the nightmare again?"
Nobita nods pale as he puts his hand on his mouth in horror "Not only that... Until now, the nightmare was still the same and I almost didn't have it anymore, but now it came back and it's worse, the appearance of the terrifying Baron Kurai in the park was more deformed and unpleasant, this time there was no one running to try to reach me and instead... Instead of dragging me into the darkness... That thing stuck all the extensions and cables in my chest... And..." Doraemon just sighs and comforts him by rubbing his head. "Why did that nightmare change so horribly?"
"I don't know, but remember that it's just a nightmare. You're trying hard to avoid a catastrophe on Independence Day, if we continue like this and avoid a tragedy the nightmare will surely go away, it's now what's affecting you the most. Come on, you have to get ready to go to school." Doraemon picks up Nobita and he leaves the room going down the stairs, the mechanical cat just sighs "It's obvious that the nightmare became like this for a reason, this situation of distance has him so upset and depressed that it only made that nightmare worse. After all, we have nightmares when something happens to us or doesn't leave us alone."
Doraemon goes down the stairs to have breakfast "This situation has to end now."
After washing, having breakfast, taking the medicine, changing and putting his bag on his shoulder, Nobita leaves for another day of school, the sky was cloudy again "Oh man, and I just forgot to bring an umbrella" The boy just sighs sadly "It doesn't matter, I don't care if it rains, I just want to finish this day."
It wasn't new that the boy felt crestfallen, every day that he turned his back on Shizuka was another dagger in the heart for both her and him. Nothing was different, just another day of classes and a test. Little by little the confidence he had decreased, beginning to have doubts even though he was showing progress both in school and in training. But he had no time to waste, it was already the end of classes and he had to go continue with the monthly project at Seiya and Melia's house, but when he was arranging his things and adjusting his cap, Seiya approaches Nobita who notices that Shizuka wasn't there when the others started to leave.
"Are you looking for Shizuka with your eyes? It's obvious. She left first, she said she had something to do." What the blue-haired boy says discourages Nobita a little, thinking that Shizuka may have already gotten angry with him and stopped trying, although, with what he was doing it was something (positive).
"Okay, it's better this way" The silly boy says as he puts his bag on his shoulder while he sighs "Have the guys already gone to your house?"
"Today there won't be anything related to the project, in fact. They said that since it's Friday, it's better to do it tomorrow, and I agree. Overall, it's not such a complicated project that the teacher assigned us this time." Nobita is startled and sighs relieved, one less pending. "Let's take the opportunity to go to the practice room, Melia told me that the pistols were already done and she wants you to try them"
"Cool! At least that will distract me from thinking about many things" Nobita lets out a light laugh but you could see sadness in his eyes, which worried Seiya a lot.
"Yes, but first, I want to pick up something at home. Can we go there first?" The silly boy nods and both boys leave the school to go to their destination. While they were walking there, Nobita began to have a sea of memories in his mind.
"How did the theater thing go? Was there a breakthrough with Shizuka?"
Nobita scratches the back of his neck while blushing nervously "Something, we have a souvenir of this day" Nobita takes out from his shirt half of the mechanical heart that hung on the necklace on his neck "Shizuka has the other half, having something that is only ours both feel so gooood"
"Shizuka gave me this bag of cookies because of the theater thing, I really love her homemade sweets, especially her cookies" An image of Shizuka giving him the bag of cookies while saying "This is because of yesterday, thank you very much Nobita, enjoy them"
"Shizuka!" The silly boy takes off his goggles, placing them back on his cap to proceed to go down the rope ladders on one side of the base and run towards his friend "Are you okay?! Didn't he hurt you?!"
"Thank you Nobita, I couldn't find anyone and I thought there was only me and this little one left, I was very scared when he approached with that katana!"
Nobita turns red from the hug and just scratches the back of his neck "It's nothing, really" They both separate while the boy with the glasses smiles at her "How could I leave you here?" He pulls out the half heart from his necklace from his shirt. "Whatever happens, I won't stop protecting you because I care about you a lot." Shizuka sees the half heart and she also pulls hers out from the top of her dress as a slight light blush appears on her cheeks.
"And I care about you a lot too, Nobita."
"Shi...zuka?" A faint familiar voice was heard
The girl's tears began to flow without her being able to stop it. The boy shows a light smile with the little strength he had "I'm sorry... for... making you... cry again..."
"NOBITA! You woke up, you finally woke up!"
"When Baron Kurai attacked you, he also cut some of your cap, I know it means a lot to you, so I fixed it, it was a little complicated to find the right shade of thread to make it look like it was nothing but I was able to find it"
"The truth is, it hurt me a lot that I could lose you Nobita" The girl's words make the boy's eyes light up, the girl with the pigtails smiles at him and in a surprising way for the boy, she puts her hand on his right hand of this.
"You have been there for me when the worst happened, you care about my condition even though you had a bad time, you risked your life confronting the Baron when he wanted to hurt me, not only that, you value the memories a lot, I noticed that when the cap thing happened last year. Even though you say you fear many things, you can muster the courage when you need it most or when others need it. You were even motivated to face your big fear until all this happened. You want to protect the feelings of others to see them happy, it says a lot about you, and I think... No, it's what I appreciate most about you."
Shizuka stands up with her eyes closed and smiling "I knew you were going to choose that. Just promise me you'll be careful. Ok?"
Nobita smiles back, blushing, nodding his head.
"Hey Nobita."
"Uh? Did something happen? Can you tell..." He barely realized it, but it was real what had happened right at that moment, the girl he liked and who had touched his heart, had come over to give him a kiss on the cheek, leaving Doraemon surprised and making the silly boy blush "...me"
"I said I was going to support you if you decided to enter that program, but I'm a little afraid that something worse will happen to you this time."
"I'm going to take care of myself, since I'm going to have a kind of training, this time the baron won't surprise me again like he did in the great hall. Could it be that when all this with the baron thing is over we can go to the theater again like a few months ago? Of course If you have something better to do that day then..."
"Not at all. And yes, we're going to the theater after everything calms down."
"I'm sorry, this was my fault. It's because the Baron used me as a distraction that he now knows about the plan, once again I've screwed up, if I would have preferred not to have faced Gian and Suneo, nor Seiya nor the others would have had to go look for me." The silly boy begins to tear up while Shizuka puts her hand on his shoulder.
"That wasn't your fault Nobita, the baron played with your feelings just for that, no one knew that someone else was walking around in the factory president's office, nor about the sudden appearance of Professor Matsuyama, he has no respect for anyone, he wanted to corrupt you to do the same as him." The girl with the pigtails lowers her hand from his shoulder to take Nobita's hand. "But you knew how to choose the right path, that's the most important thing."
"I don't want anything to happen, everyone who has been with me has helped me not to end up crazy like Professor Matsuyama, I really don't know why he is doing all that, but he chose to hurt people, right? Well, I want to..." Nobita smiles with determination as his eyes shine. "I want to prevent them from suffering."
"I'm very glad you think that way" that smile of her hit Nobita right in the heart, who blushes at what he told him.
Nobita doesn't realize that they have already arrived at Seiya's house because he has that flood of beautiful and painful memories, it was almost like a mansion bigger than Suneo's house, when they enter they take off their shoes, put on their slippers and climb up the stairs, since the clumsy boy had already gone there for the monthly project, he knew more or less how to move there. "I'm going to my room to get my notes. Wait for me on the balcony if you like, I doubt it will rain."
While Seiya goes to his room, Nobita just sighs sadly while he goes to the balcony that was at the end of the upstairs hallway, it was a large balcony where you could see a garden that they had in the house, in addition to seeing as the airships left the border walls of the city, the boy with the glasses opens the balcony doors and goes out to see the cloudy and rusty landscape, whose only trace of green was the garden of the Hirano house, when he looks out on the balcony and sees as the gardener hired by Mr. Hirano watered some pink flowers that were in perfect condition, those flowers reminded him of Shizuka, which made him exhale depressed.
Someone else comes out onto the balcony and slowly closes the door, but since Nobita was lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice that.
"Everything reminds me of Shizuka, I would like to give her even one of those flowers, but she probably hates me now for what I've been doing this week. But... Isn't it the right thing to do? I mean, I'm doing this to protect her, but... It hurts me to have to ignore her every day. Is what I'm doing really the right thing? I don't know anymore..."
The silly boy lets out another sigh, he didn't know if he could continue doing that. The brightness of his eyes had been dull since he started doing it, that was hurting him a lot and it was noticeable in his mood, his dull pupils, the increase in chest attacks that he had when they were no longer frequent and the change abrupt of the nightmare that ended worse. That emotional change was even affecting his prosthesis.
Partly he wanted things with Shizuka to go back to what they were, but on the other hand, he feared for that image he saw of her being hurt by Baron Kurai and felt that this way he protected her.
Nobita can only sigh again, even though he missed her, he also felt that he had to endure this self-imposed torment due to a fear caused by his own imagination. He didn't let it interfere with his development in school or with the program, but it was affecting him emotionally that he ended up pushing away the person he loved.
"Nobita" A sweet voice makes the clumsy boy turn around, it was Shizuka who had also gone out to the balcony, she looked at him with concern and sadness because it was clear in him dull eyes that he didn't like doing that to her.
The silly boy also looks at her and for a moment he felt the joy of seeing her face to face, but he remembered that he had to pass her by, he tried to move but his legs no longer responded to him. Inside himself it seemed that he was already reaching his limit.
