Work Text:
In the middle of the empty literature clubroom, a girl sat alone. On a cold metal chair, with a book held in her hands.
Sometimes, she would read, immersing herself into the realms behind the covers. She could feel them, the words spilling out. The nostalgic aroma of the worn pages. She would get absorbed into these vivid worlds, as if she was living in a perpetual dream. Sometimes, the lines between reality and fantasy would start to blur. And to her, that was okay. She didn't particularly enjoy living in this reality.
Sometimes, she would write, grasping a pen and a discarded notebook. She would weave stories of wondrous worlds. Words, words and more words etched themselves together, forming their own tales. Tales of excitement, spontaneity and fun. All things that didn't exist in her monotonous life.
Reading and writing, they were her escapism. Her way of avoiding the cold reality she was forced to live in. Instead of facing life head on, she hid away, protected by her self-made fantasies.
She felt like a distant observer amidst a bustling crowd. Like she was in her own little bubble, detached from the outside world. Everyone else was living in the moment, while she was clutching onto past memories and re-read books. She didn't want to let go. Days vanished, one after another. Life was passing her by.
Everyday... felt the same. Same people... same routine... same classroom... same loneliness. Just her, in the lifeless room. All alone.
Until him.
He ran into the empty clubroom, breaking the eternal silence. It was abrupt, it was unexpected, it was... incredible.
She stopped writing about lands afar, and instead, about feelings foreign to her. Like how his weary face gleamed underneath the moon light. Or how his smile, a rare occurrence, was strikingly compassionate.
Or... how painful her feelings were. Her heart didn't skip a beat whenever he walked by. Instead, she felt a piercing, sinking feeling in her chest. It was an anguished heartache, one that plagued her whenever she realized that... her love would always go unrequited. He was tantalizingly unattainable.
At times, her writings would get abstract. The words flowed in her notebook. It was flowery verbiage, that she used to describe the halations of the streetlights, glowing in the wintry starlit sky. She would also write about the echoing rain, upsetting the rhythm of the once stagnant water. After reading through paper after paper of her melancholic prose, it made her want to tear them all out. She wasn't sure what her writings meant. It all confused her. But... they seemed to express the painful feelings residing inside her.
Still, he made her feel happiness, even if it was slight and momentary. Every time she got that painful feeling in her chest, her heart would still flutter. Just a little bit. Maybe she was kind of romantic, after all. The sense of agony which constantly tormented her, also came with a euphoric bliss... It told her, maybe, just maybe, he did like her back. It was faint. It was subtle. It was overshadowed by her ever-consuming pessimism. But underneath it all, was a lingering hope.
And then, he disappeared. It was as sudden as his arrival. One day he was there, and the next, he wasn't. Her surroundings started to become blurry. She found herself disappearing, too. Everything was disappearing. Her memories were fake, she was fake, it... it was all fake. The static built up in her head as she tried to block the stress out. It was starting to overwhelm her. In the end, there was nothing left.
...Why did it have to end like this?