Fate. A predetermined supernatural power. The will of the universe. Fate is order. It writes, and rewrites, gives and takes. It spins vibrant red strings that flow into the world and connect people who are destined to meet, to love, to share a story...
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I'm halfway home from school, going over my schedule for the week in my head, when it starts. I never know when it's coming. This time, it starts with a roiling in my gut, and I stumble, my legs going weak under me, when abruptly, I'm overcome by the heaviness of ten pounds of lead being dropped on my chest.
I lean on a wall for support and coax myself to breathe in and out, slow and steady, like I've done so many times before. I tell myself to calm down and think, remind myself that this is not my pain.
Ren. I haven't felt anything of this magnitude from him in a long time. The weight of loss, guilt, sorrow, fear, confusion, hopelessness, disappointment, and beneath all those layers—an emptiness so profound, the summation of all these rampant emotions, blurring together in simple, real, and raw pain
I force the rational part of my brain to the front. Think. I have to finish my math homework today and practise my script. I simply do not have the time to waste on this, and yet going home now will be useless because there's no way I can focus on anything when Ren is in this much pain. So I turn and half-run back to school, to Ren, more on impulse than decision, even though there's nothing I can really do to make this go away.
I stop by a convenience store first and purchase a small pack of tissues, some ready-made rice cakes, and Yakisoba bread because I know that he needs them. I know he hasn't eaten anything since breakfast, like I know everything about Ren, and I know that I'm spending valuable savings on these supplies, but I'm only doing it because I've got no other choice. If Ren is suffering, then I am too, and that's just the way it is.
I find Ren on a wooden park bench inside campus, frantically wiping at his eyes under a flickering lamplight. There's an inexplicable pain in my heart as I stand and watch from the shadows, tightly clutching at my store-bought bag and feeling completely in the dark about how to proceed.
The last time Ren was suffering like this and I felt it too, I wandered all the way to his house in the middle of the night and waited outside with my face in my arms until he fell asleep and the sensations calmed down, because I didn't know what else to do and I couldn't bring myself to just sit at home and do nothing. I don't want this to end up like that, so I will myself to move into the light. I need to get this over with.
I don't want to look him in the eyes because I don't know what it'll do to me, so I drop the bag beside him and turn away. I need to go back home. I have work to do.
I hear him stand up. "Wait."
I know what he's about to say next just from the hope radiating from his voice. "Did Kurumi-senpai—"
There's a stab in my chest, and it feels too close, too real, compared to the usual detached echoes of pain. I allow myself a sideways glance. "Go home."
His voice is soft now. "Tell her I said thanks." And all the overwhelming sensations he was projecting into me are washed away by fresh waves of hope and fondness by the time I leave the school gates.
