Part 73: A Delusion-Drenched Game

Part 73 - A Delusion-Drenched Game






A place with no traffic lights. I reeled toward the roadway. I had a feeling salvation awaited me there.



Come, kill me. Me, this impostor. This hideous monster.

SFX: THUD



It tossed my body up. I ended up on top of the hood.

Intense pain--

Something hard crashed into my temple. My sight went black. The sound of bones breaking rang through my head.

I couldn't breathe, as if I were underwater. It sent me flying. I tumbled down.

My limbs were writhing. It seemed like pain would burn my nerves apart.

Ahh, with this, I could die--




"........."

I looked at myself. I wasn't wounded anywhere. Nor was I bleeding. Nor did I feel any pain.

I had thought I'd become a ghost or something. I'd wanted to think it.

But then my corpse would have to be lying in the street.

I saw no such spectacle anywhere. The car I'd been hit by was nonexistent.

A delusion....?

"Shit, shit, shit...."

I hadn't been inviting pity by calling attention to my desire to die.

I seriously wanted to die....

This time, seeking salvation for sure, I dashed into the road.



Come, kill me. Me, this impostor. This hideous monster.

SFX: THUD



It tossed my body up. I ended up on top of the hood.

Intense pain--

Something hard crashed into my temple. My sight went black. The sound of bones breaking rang through my head.

I couldn't breathe, as if I were underwater. It sent me flying. I tumbled down.

My limbs were writhing. It seemed like pain would burn my nerves apart.

Ahh, with this, I could die--




Again

Standing on the sidewalk.

"Why...."

Why did I escape into delusions every damn time....

"Aaaaahhh"

In a trembling voice, I raised a cry that verged on being a shriek. I went tumbling out into the roadway once more.



SFX: THUD





Nothing had changed.

It felt like I was going crazy. In truth, did I not want to die....? Or had I already died, and was I now dreaming?

On the verge of death, had my brain alone attained super-enhanced sensations, and was it making me see this last illusion in less than a second of real time?



Giving myself over to self-abandon, I tried to go out in the roadway again.

But--

My legs quaked. I couldn't move away.



"Uu, uuu...."

I became confounded. I lost the ability to grasp my own emotions.

Did I want to die? To live?

Which was it....

"I want.... to die...."

I gritted my teeth. I closed my eyes. I mentally chanted, "I want to die."

And as I did, my feet continued forward at last.



I'm begging you, run me over and kill me--

SFX: THUD





I stood still on the sidewalk, every body part intact.

Why--

I collapsed there, weeping.

"Why won't I let me die...."

Even though I didn't want to be alive. Even though I wanted to be delivered.






She had walked straight here after parting with Takumi.

She brought up her phone's address book and called the number recorded under the name "Nana-chan."

The recipient soon picked up.

"Ah, yeah. It's me."
"The truth is, I've got a wee little something to report to you."
"....I think I'm going to go save Nana-chan now."



It was a past she wanted to forget, but for the sake of saving Nanami, she would readily dare to meet with dark memories for a second time.

The reaction of the person she'd called was just what she had expected. And so she smiled wryly.

"Tahaha. You sure don't have much faith in me. I'm totally fine."

Both her voice and her expression were very bright. They didn't betray a particle of the tragic yet brave resolution within her. To an onlooker, she would only appear to be making an enjoyable phone call.

"It happened a long time ago."
"Anyway, between my feelings and saving Nana-chan, it's beyond obvious which one ought to take precedence."
"Didn't I tell you? I want to help you."
"Besides.... I don't want to get Taku involved."



OST: M.I.L.

"Say, would it be okay if I talked? Just for a moment?"
"I said a whole bunch of cruel things to Taku...."
"And after having done that, I know it's really selfish, but...."
"I find myself thinking about how the time I spent with him was so much fun."
"Even though everything about it was nothing more than a delusion-drenched game of pretend."
"Our school life"
"And the way Taku and I went back and forth to school"
"And being friends with Daichin"
"And how I tried to stay together with Taku"
"And Taku's existence itself."

Little by little, Rimi's pace grew more relaxed. People she'd never seen before kept passing her from behind.

"Taku is overwhelmingly pathetic. And overwhelmingly weak. The kind of boy any regular girl definitely wouldn't give a second glance."

As she spoke. She tightened the hand holding the phone to her ear.



"Yet, in my heart--I feel like I wanted to be with him longer."
"I wonder, what is this feeling?"



"........."

OST End

Rimi smiled a tiny bit in response to the person at the other end of the line.

"Now then, I've gotta hang up soon."
"Ahaha. Really, it's all right. You don't have to worry about a thing. Cause I'll get everything settled for you."






I didn't have clear memories of how I'd gotten back here after failing to die on Yamanote Street.

"I wonder.... who carried this container up here, and how...."

A question that hadn't so much as occurred to me before now. When I thought about it anew, all these things that seemed a tad odd to me kept catching my notice. They increasingly cornered me.

Once I closed the door, the room's interior went pitch-black. Leaning up against the door, I stood motionless.

All that echoed through the quiet room was the sound of my PC's fan humming and the sound of my shallow breathing.

I'd thought maybe, in the darkness, I wouldn't have to be as conscious of my hideous self, but it had the reverse effect.

In part because I couldn't see anything, and it was so very quiet, the cruel things Rimi had said to me played on endless repeat in my head.




My own moan sounded helplessly repellent to me. It gave me nausea.

Given that I was already repulsive enough, I'd be beyond saving if my existence itself were the stuff of a freak show.

I wanted to disappear--

Tripping over the trash scattered across the floor, I crept my way toward the back of the room.



I embraced Seira-tan, holding her to my chest.

She was very small. And very hard. She wasn't breathing, and she wouldn't say anything to me.

She didn't have the warmth of a 3-D girl.



Rimi had left me.

Nanami was missing.

Sena had attacked me.

Kozu-pii hadn't protected me.

Yua was my enemy.

And Ayase was in the hospital.

They were the only girls whose names I knew. And none of them would do a thing for me.

Reality wasn't easy. They couldn't care less about a monster like me.

I clenched Seira-tan with trembling hands. Harder, harder. Perhaps enough to break her.





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