Citrus: Mei's Story+Matsuri volume 2 - Targeted Heart

IV. Matsuri - Triggered

The train was even more suffocating as I made my way home. Maybe it was a business holiday, or maybe it was the fact that I was losing what little of my mind I had managed to keep together. The world wasn't as solid as it should have been. Or was it time that had been untethered? I could only try to avoid bumping into people as my past and what the present fought to be reality. With the shifting locations came shifting people. Strangers became clients or worse. Friends. Friends no one in the world knew had been mine. Friends who I was supposed to never see again, but kept seeing when my reality became fluid and deceptive. The dead spoke to me in the only way they could. They reminded me of how I knew they died, not all from an abusive or intentionally murderous client. It was worse now. Now it included the possible as well as the past. Now it included Yuzu, and Mei, and Nene. Now it finished with Harumi and in ways that only broke me further.
"Stop it."
My voice may have been nothing more than a mumbled whisper, but the pain and desperation that came with it was enough to draw attention. The wrong kind of attention.
Not now! Not yet. I have a few more stations to go until I'm home free!
"Are you alright?"
It was a woman's voice, and when I looked at her I could tell she was probably a very kind person. Then she shifted, and I was staring at a battered and bleeding Yuzu. I reacted before I could stop myself and moved back. Suddenly I was back in what I assumed was reality. The kind woman looked around nervously, unsure what to do or say. Not wanting to get involved with the crazy girl in front of her unless she had to. I couldn't do anything but try to ease her fear.
"I'll be fine, ma'am. Just got... a little shaken. I'm heading home now. Sorry to bother you."
She nodded, but still moved away a little. I finally decided to block out the world with music. But as the multiple layers of controlled repetitive sounds washed over me, so too did my world finally fully unravel. Each shift signalled a change in what I saw, and every time it was for the worse. Living ghosts gave way to detailed corpses that all seemed to say it was my fault. I couldn't escape it. I couldn't breathe. I lost track of the stations we passed. I lost track of everything except who I was and everything I had lost just surviving, and everything I would lose if I didn't pull myself together. It was all too much.
In the next brief moment I had lucidity, I turned towards the door. The people around me looked at me in ways that told me I had failed in keeping silent when I had been disconnected. I didn't dare meet they fearful gazes. I just needed to get out. The fragments of the distorted reality attempting to swallow me whole, forcing me to my knees.
Just make it until the next stop. Everything will be okay if I make it to the next stop and get away.
I needed solitude. I needed silence and space and darkness and a door to lock out the world and lock me in so I didn't do something dangerous. For all I knew, I could have been screaming in my insanity. I could have been already too far gone.
Let me out. Let me out, let me out, lemme out...
I could just barely stay still, and when the doors open I rushed out of the train. Knowing that I was leaving a grateful train behind me, not caring where I actually was except in relation to my home. I only turned looked around once I wasn't surrounded by people. Thankfully the action had pulled me back into reality enough that I could look around and actually see details without immediately losing them. As soon as I saw the station sign, my heart lept for joy. I wasn't so far from my home. Maybe a station or two away from my usual stop. I could make it. I didn't even need to find another train. I could just run.
I quickly found the exit that put me in the right direction and started sprinting for home. I was not alone. As I went, I seemed to drag my ghosts with me. Sachi and Yumi were even holding hands as they ran with me. Koroka was laughing that insane infectious laugh that she always hid for outside of work. Mizu gave me a wink and wiggled her hips playfully. Ari blew me a kiss before being pulled along by Sei. Then it was her. The girl who was my first. First time with a girl at all. First time falling. First time feeling the bite of losing someone to death.
"Minako?"
"Miss me, little one?"
It was too much hearing her voice again, knowing it was just my head. I couldn't stop the tears.
"Always."
"Then why did you let it happen again? Just like you let it happen to me."
I knew it was just my own guilt using my losses to strike, but still it hurt. I misplaced my foot as I ran into an alley and was sent hard into the opposite wall. It was tempting to just stop and stay there until I finally joined her and the others, but Harumi wouldn't let me.
"You seriously going to let that bitch play you like that?"
"How... why are you...?"
"What? Expect me to feel sorry for you and let you just give up when the same thing that happened to her could easily happen to me without you around? Expect me to let some twiggy bitch my sister's age win out over me? For who gets you?"
This isn't real! She would never be this open about it like this. She's not here. No one is here. You're alone and Inori needs you to get home!
But my heart controlled my mouth more than my little scrap of sanity.
"You don't understand! She—"
"No, you don't get it! You're mine now, not hers. You don't get to just give up. I know you think you're to blame for her, but you will be to blame if something happens to me. Are you really okay with that?"
I couldn't answer her. I could barely look at her. But my fractured mind was more than willing to play with the scenario. The ghost of Minako pushed the figment of Harumi and went for her throat.
"Stay out of this, bimbette! You can't hold a candle to what we had and could have again!"
"And yet she fell for me without me needing to show her the ropes for some greasy man."
        "Listen here, top heavy..."
        It was a little surreal to see them side by side like this, even if I knew it was simply a symptom of my shattering. I felt a little nervous about getting in between them, but I had to stop this.
         "Don't talk to her like that!"
         That shut Minako's mouth for a second. When it passed, she let me know of her surprise as well as attempted to make me regress two or three years when I had first met her.
         "Mattie?!"
         "I know I messed up back then, alright?! I'm sorry I froze up. I didn't know back then that I... that I felt like this for you. But that was then. I was a child! You were in high school and I was still in middle school. I can't do anything to make up for losing you!"
        If she had been surprised at my interruption, she recovered without missing a beat.
         "All the more reason why—"
         "I'm not done!"
         "Matsuri..."
        Harumi looked at me with concern as Minako flinched back at my interruption. I looked from my first love to the girl I was currently pining for. There really was no comparison when I actually thought about it.
         "She's different than you, Minako. It's not that she's your replacement. You were just her opening act. If you're going to make me choose which guilt to follow, I'll always choose her. So stop it. I don't want to hate your memory."
         "But will you forget about us?"
         "Yes..."
         I saw the defeat in her eyes and had to bow my head. It felt like I was betraying her even though I knew it wasn't the case at all. I had already moved on from her before I even knew I actually liked girls a little more than I liked boys. Now I was chasing after Harumi, who was probably more defended than a country leader. Still, I felt absolutely rotten for even saying it.
       "I'm sorry."