Chapter Text
Time to rant about the awful rates on this banner. Fuuta tapped on the app icon and caught a glimpse of his Twitter feed momentarily before the screen went dark. …Right.
The hand holding his phone fell limply onto the couch, releasing the device. This was the eighth time this had happened today. The guilt only grew.
He needed a break from social media, but the act of opening it and posting had become such a habit that he hardly noticed himself opening the app in the first place until he was deep in another drama rabbit hole. He’d set up a simple automation, if he opened Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch, or any other social media, his phone would shut down. Having to wait for it to restart when he turned it back on was supposed to give him time to think about it or something. Ironically, he’d gotten this advice from social media.
He couldn’t bring himself to delete everything, but at the same time, being on them didn’t help the real issue he was having. He hadn’t made any friends since he’d started university. Sure, he had a few acquaintances, but nobody who he really clicked with. Everything always made it seem like “who cares about your high school friends? The friends you make at university will be your friends for life.” He turned to the internet because he didn’t believe that.
The truth was, he had barely talked to anyone in a week. When he had, his voice had come out shaky and he’d accidentally snapped at someone for asking him to repeat himself. Frustrated, he had turned to the online world, posting about games and arguing with people in comment sections. By the time he was ready to fall asleep so that he could at least get some decent rest, his mind was running with thoughts and ideas about what to post and opinions on controversial topics.
All of the internet access in the world couldn’t cure his deep, suffocating loneliness though. How ironic to be in a room full of people during class, and yet he felt as if he was the only one there. The number of people around made no difference, it was the complete lack of interaction.
Once his phone rebooted, he opened the messages app and scrolled through his contacts. He hadn’t talked to Kotoko in a month, but maybe she would have some free time to chat.
(1:36 pm) Fuuta:
hey are u busy? do u want to call or something?
No way in hell was he admitting that he was so lonely that he felt like he was going to die.
Delivered. How long had he been staring at it?
Impatiently, he played video games for a while and thought surely she would have seen it by now. …Still unread. Nobody fucking cares about me anyways. Why do I even bother?
By the time it grew dark outside his window, there was still no indication from the other end that his message had been received. Trying to just numb out his feelings, he wiped tears from his eyes, but that didn’t stop them from coming. He tried to remind himself that this was stupid to cry over, but it wasn’t exactly new that he tended to judge his worth as a person based on whether he was important enough for people to reply. A friend not replying basically meant that he wasn’t interesting enough to care about, even if logically he knew that they were probably just busier than him.
Midnight came and went without even a read receipt. Tired from the overwhelming sadness, he wished to sleep so deeply that he could forget his own existence.