“…It’s strange. Everyone worked so hard to make today fun. The trip, the surprise, the cake… all of it.” she spoke with a soft voice, while taking a sip of tea, her eyes also distant

“And yet, when it was all over… I didn’t feel anything. Not happiness. Not sadness. Just… empty. Like I was watching someone else’s life from a distance.” she added, her eyes darkening as if was gazing a black and white TV

“…You mean, it didn’t feel real?” I answered

With a depressed tone, she started to gaze the asphalt and said “Maybe that’s it. Or maybe I’m the one who’s not real anymore.”

(She forces a small fake smile, the kind that hurts to see.)

“I used to think that as long as I worked harder, became better, everything would have meaning. But lately, no matter what I do… the results don’t reach me. Like there’s a glass wall between me and the world.”

(She looks down at the can in her hands, voice trembling slightly.)

“…I know I should be proud of myself. I’ve achieved everything I planned. But when I try to feel proud… there’s just nothing there. And that scares me more than anything.”

“…You’ve been carrying that alone this whole time, haven’t you?” I spoke with a gentle yet sublte voice, acknowledging the troubles about herself, because yet I knew that her mask begans to fall off as she admits something wrong about her idealism and how she views the world through her own correctness

With a quite voice she yet again spoke to me “I had to. Because if I stopped… if I let someone see how empty I’ve become… ... then everything I’ve built — every reason I had for being Aoi Hinami — would disappear.”

(She closes her eyes, her voice barely above a whisper.)

“…Maybe I’ve been so focused on being right that I forgot how to be alive. Jeez, I am so pathetic and disgusting”