Chapter Text
“What a mess… ” he muttered once he was tucked into bed.
It was already dark outside, and only faint traces of the summer moonlight came through the gaps in the window. The day had drained him physically, socially, and mentally, so he barely acknowledged the other people in the household when he arrived. Even when his mom had called him for dinner, his mind was somewhere else, and he ran for his room. His sanctuary when life feels a bit overwhelming.
And if “overwhelming” had a name, its name would be Hoshina Subaru.
He collapsed onto his bed, throwing an arm over his eyes to shut out the world temporarily. He tried to process the events of the day, but the moment he closed his eyes, her face was already there.
"Having you by my side makes me feel at ease after all…" Hoshina had said that afternoon, while the soft waves caressed their ankles.
Saku opened his eyes, then squeezed them shut again. It didn’t help. Her worried expression was burnt into his mind, reappearing every single time he tried to brush it off. He let out a long, heavy sigh, his heart thundering loudly in his chest. Frustrated, he grabbed his pillow and pressed it against his face, trying to smother the memory of her.
Why, why do you have to say things like that? He thought.
He had been unable to control his emotions, and the careful mask he had worn had crumbled to pieces.
"Well, I’m happy to hear that," Saku had replied once he was able to, once he had scrambled to find the words. "I’m sure you’ll do just fine without me."
He regretted the words the moment they left his lips. He wanted to reach out and tell her that he actually needed her. That he was losing his composure and that ‘fine’ was the last thing he was without her.
"F-Fine…? But Natsusawa…" Hoshina had mumbled with a confused expression.
"I mean, I get why you are worried about university life," he had interrupted her, still trying to act unaffected, but behind his steady voice, he was barely holding himself together. "But even if we are not around anymore, you’re going to find new people and a new place where you belong."
“I’m an idiot,” Saku groaned in frustration against the pillow.
Frustration because of her words.
And frustration, shame and regret about his own.
He tossed and turned, trying to get himself to sleep, but his brain kept refusing to let the day finally die. No matter how many versions of the conversation he could come up with in his head now that the events were long over, the reality remained unavoidable, set in stone.
And it didn't matter how much he regretted it.
It didn't matter how many better responses he could come up with now that it was already too late.
He couldn't do anything about it anymore.
...
Or could he?
Saku opened his eyes that morning to the sound of his alarm.
He reached out to his phone, which was lying atop the bedside table, to silence the hellish sound that had awakened him with a tired swipe. The sudden absence of sound only made the silence heavier. Outside his window, the sky was already bright and painfully clear, unbothered blue stretching endlessly above the city.
It felt almost mocking.
He rubbed his eyelids, trying to coax himself into wakefulness, but exhaustion clung to him. His body felt heavier than it should have, like sleep hadn’t quite finished letting him go. His room felt suddenly too bright, the clear blue sky outside the window standing in stark contrast to his inner state, exhausted and groggy.
A soft buzz pulled his attention back, and he noticed that he had unread messages in the chat.
Shohei: Can't wait to hit the zoo and the beach today!
He stared at it for a moment, brain sluggish, trying to process the words.
… What?
Saku: Didn't you have enough zoos and beaches yesterday?
He sent it half-asleep, thumb moving before he could think better of it. Then he dropped his arm back onto the bed, exhaling as another yawn took over. For a brief second, he considered going back to sleep and ignoring the world entirely.
But his phone chimed again.
Shohei: ???
Shohei: You are not trying to flake out today, right Saku?
Yuzuhara: Hey guys, we are meeting at 10:00 right?
That made him pause. Ten o’clock?
He slowly lowered his phone, gaze drifting toward the window as if the answer might be written in the sky outside. The sunlight didn’t help. Neither did the growing realization creeping in the edges of his mind.
Weird…
Did we make plans for today as well?
Saku scrolled up in the chat app, only to find that the messages he remembered from the “previous day” were gone.
Nothing.
A faint unease and worry settled in his chest. He pulled back to his phone screen and the date stared back at him.
Today. The same date as yesterday. Yesterday… Can he even call it that?
Not a leftover proof of yesterday and it was, in fact, the day they were meeting up to go to the zoo and the beach.
Saku hesitated only a second longer before springing into motion. Sleep was gone from him now, replaced by a sudden urgency that made his movements sharper. He got dressed in a hurry, grabbed his things without checking them, and left his place with his uneasiness still lingering.
The city outside was bright and ordinary, almost offensively so. The morning continued as if nothing strange was happening. As if his confusion didn’t exist.
He met up with everyone at their usual spot just in time. Their voices were familiar, their energy unchanged, like everything was perfectly normal. Saku tried to act the same as everyone else. He laughed when they joked, nodded when they spoke, and followed along when they started moving from place to place.
On the surface, nothing about him seemed out of place. But underneath it all, something kept pressing at the back of his mind.
At first, he brushed it off as a dream. Something unusually vivid, the kind that sticks too strongly even after waking up. That had to be it. There was no other explanation that made sense and no reason to believe otherwise.
But then the day started to unfold, and it didn’t just feel familiar. It matched exactly.
The timing of their jokes, the pauses between conversations, even the small, unnecessary gestures like Shohei scratching the back of his head while deciding where to go next. Everything happened in the same rhythm he remembered, as if the entire day had already been carefully rehearsed once before.
The certainty of it made his skin feel faintly cold.
Although there were small deviations that appeared whenever he acted differently from what he remembered. It was as if the day followed the same structure no matter what, adjusting around him in subtle ways whenever he stepped off script.
One of those moments happened during their match to decide where to go next in the zoo.
“Then, let’s get this battle started!”
“Rock, paper, scissors!”
“Damn Saku, you won for a change” Shohei exclaimed, energetic as ever, his voice carrying easily through the small crowd.
Saku could swear he saw Hoshina at his side scoff in amusement. A knowing sound like she didn’t expect this outcome and was indulging it anyway. What a tease…
But the truth was simpler, and far more unsettling. Saku already knew what everyone was going to play. Not because he was lucky or observant, but because he had already lived—no, already dreamed?—this exact moment before. It had made winning less of a surprise and more of an inevitability, like following a path he had already walked once in the dark.
“I really wanted to check the chimpanzees though… ” Yuzuhara pouted, glancing toward the direction of the enclosure as if it personally betrayed her.
“They are not around at this time though,” Saku interjected almost automatically, the words slipping out before he could fully consider them.
“Really? How do you know?” Waguri asked, tilting her head slightly.
“Err… ”
Saku hesitated, the words catching in his throat before they could properly form. This was not something he was ready to explain. Even if he tried, there was no version of this conversation that ended with them believing him.
The day had progressed in the same dynamic, and Saku had not been able to understand what was happening to him. So, he decided to just go with the flow. There were no other options that made sense. Whatever this was, it was too strange.
He told himself it had to be a dream. That was the only explanation that even came close. But the more the day unfolded, the more that excuse began to crack under its own weight. Everything was too vivid, too consistent, and too aware of itself to be something his mind was simply inventing in sleep.
Still, he pushed the thought aside and went along with it.
Then, as the day progressed, the dreaded conversation came around, also in a similar fashion as the day before. But to Saku, it felt like standing in front of something he had already survived once and wasn’t sure he could survive in the same way.
And this time, he knew exactly what was coming next.
“And… What about you?” Hoshina had asked, with hopeful, inquisitive eyes.
The warm colors of the afternoon surrounded them, the waves tickled their talons. Somewhere behind them, their friends’ laughter rose, distant enough to blur into the background, but close enough to remind them that they weren’t alone.
But at that moment, it felt like they were.
“You mean my choice of university?” he countered, though he already knew the answer, like a movie he had already seen and that was vividly replaying in his memory.
If he continued following the designed path, the one he had taken before, the one he wasn’t even sure he had “chosen”, he knew exactly what would happen. He would tell her she was kind, that she worried too much, that she didn’t need to concern herself over him.
And then she would say something he wasn’t ready to hear again.
So he decided against it.
“No need to worry about that. Things will work out somehow in the end,” he replied this time, trying to bring the topic to an end. He forced a small smile, glancing toward the horizon. “Let’s enjoy the beach, shall we?”
“Oh?” Hoshina seemed perplexed by his shutdown and tugged a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yes, you are right.”
They moved on to lighter topics, and soon enough they joined the others. Saku had managed to avoid reliving that moment, but now a complex mix of emotions churned inside him. He felt mostly relieved—relieved at avoiding being put on the spot, having to fake a smile, and telling her everything would be fine, even if they drifted apart, that she would do well without him.
He was reminded of how she didn’t see him any other way and how she relied on that status quo to hold. Yet, even if he didn’t want to admit it, he had wanted to hear her say it: to hear from her own mouth that she trusted him and that he made her feel at ease.
Sweet words that healed him, and wounded him again.
In the light of day, they played in the water, mostly among the boys. When dusk settled and night fell, Shohei, of course, was the one who brought out the fireworks.
Flares and lights illuminated their faces, and everyone enjoyed themselves, chatting with one another. The air smelled faintly of gunpowder, the crackle of fireworks mixed with their chatter, and the scrape of sand along with the salty scent of the ocean made the night feel cozy.
“It would be so nice if we could come back next year,” Hoshina said suddenly, startling him out of his thoughts. Saku blinked, pulled back into the moment. She was standing right beside him.
Weird, wasn't she considerably farther away yesterday?
“Yeah, it would,” he agreed lightheartedly. “Everyone is bound to be quite busy though.”
“That is true,” Hoshina giggled softly. She had been really happy the whole day and the atmosphere of the night might have put her in a good mood.
“Still…” she continued, her voice dropping just slightly, “I hope we find the time.”
Saku felt it then. The faint shift in the air, the same one from before. The one that always came right before something important.
“I know you don’t want me talking about university during our hangout,” she added, a small, almost sheepish smile forming, “but I just kind of assumed we would be going to the same one.”
Saku suddenly had a bad feeling about this.
“I can’t help it, having you by my side makes me feel at ease after all…”
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she said it, just like before. Exactly like before.
A cold weight settled in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t even have time to control whatever his face was at the moment.
He glanced around, and he could see the surprised stares of the rest of the group on them. They had gone quiet. A few of them were already looking over, as if they had caught onto something they weren’t quite meant to witness. The shift in atmosphere hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Even Shohei is looking this way,
Saku clicked his tongue under his breath.
Damn it.
Hoshina, of course, was totally unaware of this. Her focus was totally on him, her brow furrowing, her eyes laced with concern.
Saku didn’t even know what kind of expression he was making at the moment. He was sure hadn't managed to mask away his pain.
“Subaru!” Yuzuhara suddenly jumped at Hoshina out of nowhere, cutting through the sudden tension and slipping between them with a suspicious timing. “Silly you, your pants got dirty with the sand…”
“Eh? I don’t see any…”
Before Hoshina could finish the phrase, she was yanked and pulled away by Yuzuhara. The movement was quick, leaving her a little room for protest. Waguri excused herself to go with them to help.
This is a fucking mess.
By the time the hangout ended and he made his way home, exhaustion had finally begun to catch up with him. He climbed the stairs with heavy steps before collapsing onto his bed without even bothering to change.
His mind, however, refused to follow his body.
Thoughts circled restlessly, replaying every moment of the day, every deviation, every word he had tried (and failed) to avoid. It was quieter now, but no less overwhelming.
Still, sleep came easier this time. Maybe it was fatigue or maybe it was resignation.
Either way, as his consciousness began to fade, one thought lingered more strongly than the rest.
He couldn’t wait for the day to finally end—
and free him from this suffocating misery.