𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘥𝘴 𝘦𝘯𝘷𝘺 𝘶𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦'𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘭

🌻―დ➷ i've always dreamt of being there (day #16 (late) - disconnect)

hiiii this one kinda goes with the eyes chapter. they kinda talk abt similar feelings of being disconnected from people

we do a healthy amount of projection (although this is also somewhat based on the new pjsekai song so how are we doing wondasho nation)
---------—-------

"Wait. That's NOT a normal feeling?"

Of course it wasn't. He knew as much, it was just something that he had grown accustomed to. And yet, now he was questioning that a lot more than he used to.
Of course a feeling of not belonging anywhere wouldn't be normal.

It was actually something that he had thought about ever since he was little. The strife between the clans often would make people pressure you to pick a side, but he didn't exactly care about that sort of thing. He'd rather stick to the people he knew.
That on it's own alienated him from most of the kids that came from any of the two clans. (unsurprisingly it used to be a lot.)

Then he went from not caring at all, to caring too much. This dispute had cost so much, to the point of affecting his ancestors— people who didn't pick a side either only to be cast away. This sort of bitterness just drove him to pick sides less. There's would be no way to win out of any choice; and even if he wanted to tell the truth about everything that had happened, to put an end to it all. He couldn't exactly do that. (I mean. If your ancestors who didn't pick a side died out by trying to put down the flame of war, who knows what would happen if he tried to do the same.)

What he didn't realize is that those feelings eventually bled out into his other relationships. He didn't just feel disconnected from people related to the clans. It was a disconnect from people in general. Even co-workers, or even people who tried to get closer to him.

Even if he acted friendly to everyone, there was still a sense of... distance. Distance from anyone he spoke to. Even from the only person who he really could confide in at the time.

So yeah. Those feelings weren't normal. Why it took him this long to finally realize that was beyond him.

Slowly, that sense of alienation started fading, if only because there were now people actively forcing the gap between them and him to close. Something he, too, was now starting to do unconsciously.

And even then... The feeling of finally closing that gap. To make that distance smaller and smaller, until it could no longer exist…
It was scary.

Could he have gotten so used to this loneliness? To being alone that the idea that he should stop seemed so impossible? Maybe it was the fact that he started getting accustomed to it as a way to not get hurt, that the realization of closing that gap would be harder to handle than he originally anticipated.

He thinks that, if he had to put it into perspective, it'd be as if you'd been tied up outside of a window for your entire life, and now that you can set yourself free, it'd just be allowing you to fall down into the abyss.

So, why did it feel like falling into that abyss was suddenly worth it?
He doesn't know.
He's scared.
But confronting that the feeling wasn't normal... He has no choice but to give it a try.