A heavy silence fell over the amphitheater, the calm of the storm that precedes the collapse of everything. After the stormy moment when danger invaded Aura's mind, she returned to normal smoothly, as if nothing had ever happened. Blinking her virtual eyes, she looked around with artificial confidence, then settled on Hiroshi, who didn't miss the slight change in her expression.
"Are you okay?"
The question was enough to test her composure. Raising her head slightly, she answered in a refined, perfect, flawless tone:
"I'm fine, thank you for asking Hiroshi-san."
Her answer was free of hesitation, disconcertingly natural, as if she hadn't just experienced a moment of self-collapse. Hiroshi didn't react, just nodded, then turned to Mikiko Sato, who was lost in her thoughts.
She sat on the edge of one of the benches, legs crossed, hands clasped in front of her, looking at the floor in deep thought. She couldn't shake the feeling whispering in her mind that something illogical was happening in front of her.
"This all doesn't make sense."
Hiroshi turns to Ryuichi: "Do you have any idea what you've done? It's all because of you, Ryuichi! You're the reason things have come to this!"
His voice was laden with anger and frustration, but Ryuichi... didn't quite hear him. His eyes were glazed over, and his words echoed in his mind but made no sense.
Because something else was occupying him more...
that blade.
Aura's last move, her look, the way she slipped that blade into his hand without anyone noticing... Why? Why did she give it to him?
"Do you hear me, you idiot?"
Hiroshi raised his voice even more, grabbing Ryuichi's collar, forcing him to raise his head. But instead of responding, Ryuichi just stared at him with blank eyes. His mind wasn't here.
"You don't even think about what you did, do you? You were the reason she got into this state, and yet... you seem to be lost in another world!"
At that moment, Miku, who had been watching silently, stepped forward and smiled her usual smile-that of soft malice.
"That's enough, Hiroshi."
She said quietly, but decisively. Hiroshi looked at her sharply, but said nothing, then stepped up to Ryuichi, gripping Ryuichi's shirt tighter, anger rising from his lips as if the words were exploding. "Do you hear me, asshole?! Do you know what you did?" His tone was full of rage, his eyes glowing with rage.
Ryuichi slowly raised his head, as if his mind was still swirling with questions. His eyes were blank, as if he was trying to collect his scattered thoughts. "I'm sorry, Hiroshi..." He whispered, his eyes darting between Hiroshi and Miku, who was watching silently. "I don't know what I was supposed to do."
"You were the cause of all this, Ryuichi!" Hiroshi replied in a loud, almost cracking voice. "You're the one who let things get out of hand! Have you thought about the consequences of your actions? Have you thought about all of us?!" He abruptly let go, taking a step back, but not stopping to look at him intensely. "You're the one who brought all this upon us, and now you're looking for excuses?" He then turned around nervously and walked over to the broken screen, slamming his fist into it angrily, as if it had the answer.
At that moment, Mikiko approached Ryuichi and whispered in his ear:
"Ryo-kun, you really don't realize what a mistake you've made, do you? But it's okay, don't burden yourself so much, mistakes happen."
He raised his head again, but this time his eyes held something different. Something akin to remorse, but completely confused. "I don't know... I don't know how to act, Miko."
Then, after a bit of silence, his phone suddenly rang, breaking the tense silence in the amphitheater.
He looked at the screen... the name that appeared on it was: Ryoko.
But before he could respond, Hiroshi exclaimed impatiently:
"Really?! Now you're getting calls?"
Then, in an angry outburst, he struck Ryuichi's hand, and the phone fell to the floor and hit the tiles hard, breaking the back cover.
A heavy silence followed, and then Hiroshi exploded in a contemptuous tone:
"You're not even worth worrying about! You think everything revolves around you, like you're the center, but you're just a walking mess!"
His words exuded an arrogant narcissism, and his gaze seemed to pierce the chests of those around him.
Miku stepped forward quickly, trying to calm the situation, and placed her hand lightly on Hiroshi's arm.
"Enough, Hiroshi... we don't need any more escalation right now."
But Hiroshi, with reason in his eyes, turned to her violently, then suddenly raised his hand to slap her...
Woosh!
An unnatural wind suddenly swept across the runway, as if something had passed at the speed of light, and then time stopped for a moment.
Hiroshi's hand stopped in mid-air, gripped with unbelievable strength.
Ryoko.
He stood behind him, grabbing his wrist before he reached Miku's face, his features sunken in shadows, his hair blowing in the wind that hadn't stopped yet, his scarf fluttering as if the air itself respected him.
He said with a deep calm:
"Enough."
Hiroshi froze in place, then slowly turned his head, his gaze meeting Ryoko's eyes...
Cold eyes, but deep within them was a volcano that had yet to erupt.
"Let go of my hand, Ryoko."
Hiroshi said in a threatening tone.
But Ryoko didn't move, didn't even blink.
"I was going to hit her, huh? You really fell that low?"
Ryoko's tone is calm, but it carries a soft venom.
He finally freed Hiroshi's hand, pushing him lightly backward, but that lightness caused Hiroshi to take three steps back without regaining his balance.
Miko, standing in the center, immediately intervened, trying to stop the explosion:
"Both of you... stop! We're not here to fight."
But the spark had already ignited.
Hiroshi, not taking offense, glared at Ryoko as if he wanted to devour him with his gaze.
"Why are you even here? Who invited you? That's an internal matter, Ryoko!"
Ryoko finally smiled - a slight smile that carried an obvious sarcasm.
"Oh, no one invited me. But my friend... he needed me."
He slowly made his way over to Ryuichi, who was still standing silently, staring at everything as if out of time.
Ryoko leaned toward him slightly, and whispered:
"Sorry I'm late... you're just in time, aren't you?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He put his hand on Ryuichi's shoulder, then looked at the others, his tone this time decisive:
"I'll take him now. I warned you... whoever touches him anymore will have to deal with me."
That was enough for everyone to fall silent.
Quietly, Ryoko walked out of the amphitheater with Ryuichi, leaving the wind behind, the anger slowly dissolving into the atmosphere of the room.
But behind it all...
That small blade in Ryuichi's hand remains a mystery, glowing silently in his pocket...
In a dark side corridor, out of sight, where only the sound of their footsteps can be heard...
Ryoko walks ahead of him with quiet, confident steps, while Ryuichi follows silently, his head lowered, his eyes never ceasing to look at the ground... no, not the ground... but at a specific object in his mind's eye:
The blade, weighing unbearably heavy in his pocket.
The feel of it, that moment when Aura slipped it into his hand, the subtle look in her eyes...
Everything was unnatural.
"Ryuichi."
Ryoko stopped, turning his head toward him.
"Do you know how many times I wished I could break Hiroshi's nose?" He said with a slight smile, trying to ease the tension.
But Ryuichi didn't smile.
"You okay?"
He hesitated for a moment... then said:
"I just... need some time to think."
Ryoko nodded, understanding that his friend was unwell, but he didn't insist.
"I'll be around... if you need me, just call."
He walked away, leaving Ryuichi alone next to a broken window with a dusty light coming in.
He slowly took out the blade and looked at it, as if it held all the answers... and all the dangers.
"Aura... what are you doing? Why me?"
he whispered to himself in a barely audible voice.
He knew that from this moment... there was no going back.
Everything would change.
---
Inside the amphitheater, after Ryuichi and Ryoko had left...
There was a tense silence, with only Miku and Hiroshi still standing in the center of the room, looking at the closed door as if his gaze could penetrate the walls.
Suddenly, he slammed his fist into the nearest table, and the wood exploded as if it were reflecting his rage.
"Idiot! He doesn't understand anything! He thinks he's the hero of this story!"
He snarled loudly, as if the walls owed it to him to listen.
Miku sat quietly on one of the benches, legs crossed, arms crossed over her chest, then said in a soft but cautious tone:
"Are you done?"
He turned to her with fire in his eyes, but quickly smiled, a poisoned smile.
"Miko... You're the only one here with a brain, yet you waste your time worrying about him?"
He took a step toward her, then continued, pointing to the door:
"Ryuichi? The little one who doesn't understand what's going on around him? The one who is driven by coincidence and pity instead of understanding?"
Miku sighed, and replied without losing her composure:
"At least he's trying... And you? You blow up like a spoiled child if things don't go your way."
Hiroshi laughed mockingly.
"Oh, Miku... don't confuse things. There are those who are born to lead, and those who are born to be led.
I'm the former, I'm the one who decides how things go, the one who fixes the mess of idiots like Ryuichi."
He leaned in closer, until he was right in front of her, bent slightly to meet her gaze, and said:
"Do you know why I can't let him take center stage?
Because this scene was written for me from the beginning. I'm the one who should be in the spotlight."
Miko raised a sarcastic eyebrow, and said quietly:
"Does the spotlight need someone to shout for it? Those who want to be the leader don't need to say it every time."
He snorted with laughter, then looked away.
"It's okay... it's okay... you don't see it now, but soon... when the masks fall, when the smartest survive... I will be the one writing the ending."
He approached the door, but before he walked out, he turned to her one last time, and said in a low tone but heavy with arrogance:
"Mark my words, Miko. In the end... they will all come to me."
Then he walked out, closing the door behind him, with a sound that sounded like a seal on a promise.
After Hiroshi closed the door behind him.
There was silence again, but this time it felt different... heavier.
Mikiko remained where she was, her eyes fixed on the closed door, but her gaze went deeper than just walls and gates.
She whispered to herself, softly but clearly:
"Whoever shouts that he is the king... is a frightened child inside, afraid that no one will see him."
She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and continued:
"That arrogance... is nothing but a fragile wall... hiding behind it a man terrified of others discovering how lonely he is."
She opened her eyes, looked up at the ceiling as if searching for an answer that wouldn't come, then said:
"Hiroshi... your issue is that you think intelligence alone is enough to lead the world... but you forget that hearts don't bow to those who despise them."
She rose from her seat, walked to the door slowly, then stood in front of him, reaching out her hand as if to feel the effects of his presence, and said softly:
"The day will come when you will realize... that what you miss most is the one you thought was weaker than you."
Then she turned away and walked out, not closing the door this time.
On the other side, Ryuichi's footsteps were slow, steady, as if walking on ground that wasn't his. Silence enveloped him, except for the sound of his shoes scraping against the ground and the echo of internal calls that only he could hear.
He entered the nearly empty cafeteria, where the smell of roasted coffee overpowered everything. He walked up to the machine, took out a coin without looking at it, and inserted it. Everything is automated... like it doesn't even need human interaction anymore.
"Black coffee... no sugar." He whispered to himself, as if it were a mantra that he knew would hurt him, yet he recited it with a strange desire.
He pressed the button, and the dark liquid began to slowly descend into the paper cup, reflecting the cold lights of the machine. In that moment... his memory poured in, like a door being forced open:
"How many times have I told you not to drink this shit?"
Her voice was clear... sharp, but it had that tone that only Sera, his mother, could have.
"Ryuichi... you're different. Your mana center doesn't tolerate stimulants. This coffee is wearing you down from the inside... you don't feel it now, but it's tearing you apart."
Those words he had always heard, ignored, then heard again... and each time they pierced his eardrums and shook him to his core. But he didn't stop.
He grabbed the cup, lifted the lid, watched the steam rise like spirits trying to escape, then whispered:
"I know, Mom... but I need this pain right now."
He walked out of the cafeteria, his steps quiet, strangely balanced. The sunset was just beginning to cover the sky with its dark orange layer, and the air smelled of exhausted hope.
He crossed the small garden in front of the main building, then slowly descended the stairs. At the gate, he stood for a moment, looking at the waiting bus, its doors open as if to welcome him... or swallow him.
He took a sip of coffee, closed his eyes, and stepped forward.
Another inner voice: "Maybe I should stop running... but not today."
And he got on the bus.
Ryuichi boarded the bus, showing no emotion. He settled into the same seat he had once sat in, on his way to college for the first time, after deciding to change the course of his life. It was the same place, the same atmosphere, but time had passed... and many things had changed. He laughed a little to himself, remembering how that day seemed like the beginning of something great. Now, the days were repeating themselves in an unpleasant way, as if they had become a prison in which he moved from one moment to the next without change.
"How come I'm here again? Same seat, same flight... What if this life is just an endless loop?" He said to himself sarcastically.
He sat down and the bus rolled down the familiar road, beginning its journey toward Ryuichi's neighborhood. Night was beginning to fall, and the sky was beginning to take on the colors of a sunset, the last rays of the sun imitating gold, drowning the horizon in red, slowly dissolving into stillness.
She gently lifted his hand, and he took another sip of the still-warm coffee. It extinguished part of the lukewarm feeling in him.
As time passed, gradually, its heat diminished and its taste became more bitter, as if it was slowly pulling away the last traces of the comfort that had been in his heart. He sat in silence, inhaling the night air, which was playing strange melodies in his ears. Thoughts were jumping around in his mind as if they were racing to somewhere, he didn't know where.
"Mom... if you were here, you would have told me not to do this. You know how it affects my mana center. But... what about me? What about the moments when I need something?"
He remembered the discussions they had together, about his health and condition, about his endless decisions... he remembered those nights when he felt this overwhelming loneliness that he couldn't shake. "Was everything wrong?"
Then came the voice inside his head, the one he usually ran away from: "You're not what you want to be, Ryuichi."
He drowned in these thoughts until every moment on the bus felt heavier and heavier, as if the carriage wasn't moving but was just a corpse floating through time. Time and space became gelatinous, and the more he traveled through the images in his mind, the farther away from the reality of what he was experiencing.
But as the carriage's movement and the sound of its engines changed, sleep began to overtake his eyelids. His eyes are closing little by little.
Eventually, despite his attempts to keep thinking, his limbs began to slowly pulse as if they wanted to withdraw from his body. Everything around him began to become engulfed in a light fog... until he finally passed out.
Then, there was silence.
Time stopped like a bus coming to its final stop. The sun had set, leaving behind a dark sky that dragged the rest of the day lost in his thoughts.
"Maybe I'll never get out of this." It was his last thought before he fell into a deep sleep, as a small wind washed his face, marking the beginning of a new chapter in his torn life.