12. Intermission: Me and Him

Editing/Standardisation: Medicine Melancholy
Original Translation: Medicine Melancholy

Reiji

When I first met him, he was just some strange guy I hadn’t seen
before, and that’s it.
He was recently transferred from another hospital to the local one in
my neighborhood, where he was hospitalized because of his broken
legs.
I was too busy strolling around the hospital and happened to enter that
guy’s room, and my first impression of him was that he was kind of like
a girl.
What bugged me was that the whole time, he was staring blankly
somewhere in the distance, not moving his face even a twitch.
I tried talking to him, he just gave me a small nod, not even hiding his
total lack of interest. Being the kid I was at the time, I spent every day
afterward trying to make him laugh, or at least pique his interest.
“That kid’s had a rough time. He absolutely doesn’t trust anyone else,
especially adults… But maybe he’ll open up to somebody of his age.”
Said my grandpa when he came to visit me in the hospital.
Turned out, that strange guy was the grandson of my grandpa’s
acquaintance.
Eventually, I got to befriend his little sister, who often came to the
hospital for that guy. As an only child, I felt like I had a sister of my own,
which honestly wasn’t a bad feeling.
My new daily life went on like this, until one day, I saw a group of adults
that I didn’t see around here coming in with their rather bulky cameras.
I sneakily followed them to see if they were some kind of bad folks, and
as soon as they entered that guy’s room… I heard a scream.
I jumped in impatiently and saw him shrinking and trembling at the
edge of the bed, and his sister clinging to him threateningly. And then
there were the guys grinning at them and pointing their cameras and
microphones at me with ugly looks on their faces.
It was obvious that that guy was scared of those adults. I was so angry
that I started hitting them with the crutches in my hand.
Before I knew it, the men were gone, and I got a lot of scolding from
the hospital staff. My parents and grandpa were quite mad at me as
well, but in the end, they praised me with a “Well done”, which made
me really proud.
The next day, that guy started responding properly when I talked to
him.
Me, him, and his little sister would watch the TV together in the
common room or explore the hospital together.
On the day I was discharged from the hospital, they were both crying so
hard that I cried myself, to everyone else’s chagrin… So when I saw him
and his sister pushing his wheelchair the following month, accompanied
by the old man who lived in the very large house next door, we all
laughed and wondered what it was that we had cried together that
time.
That guy’s grandpa used to be angry about his son’s adamant decision
to marry an unidentified foreign girl he had picked up from somewhere,
so much that he disowned his own son.
He only came to regret it when the son and his wife were killed by an
armed robber without his knowledge, and rushed to pick up his
grandchildren, who were this brother and sister, when the new finally
arrived to him long after the death.
And that’s why the two siblings, who had lost their parents, were taken
in by their grandparents to live here.
I’d gained two new friends, and we were together more often than not.
Even though many people looked at him strangely because of his
peculiar appearance, his inability to move his lower body and his
anthropophobia, I was the one who mediated, quarreled and even got
into fight to defend him.
I’m absolutely sure that I thought of that guy as a friend, but now that I
think about it, I’d always had some sense of superiority in me at the
time whenever it’s about “protecting him”.
This situation changed during our freshman year of high school. By this
time, his fear of other people was getting worse, and although we had
gone to high school together, we had less and less contact with each
other.
First his grandmother died. Then his grandfather died in quick
succession.
My family helped with the funeral, as we knew it would be difficult for
two kids to handle, and I didn’t see him again for a few months after
that.
Then… he suddenly dropped out of high school and disappeared
without telling me why. Feeling betrayed, I cut off contact with him in a
fit of rage. We became estranged for an entire year.
“Reiji! Hey Reiji, come take a look!”
Shortly after the new year, I heard his voice for the first time in a long
while in a very excited tone. I still harbored bad feelings for him, but
reluctantly went to see him anyway…
He proudly showed me a paperback book as if it was the result of a
successful prank.
“Illustrator: Kuga Yanagi”
I rubbed my eyes a few times at the letters, and asked him “What’s
this?” in bewilderment.
According to him, he’d wanted to be independent since his
grandparents died.
His grandparents were well-known landowners, and in their later years,
they converted their land rights into gold, except for the area around
the barrier-free house (so that a disabled person like him could freely
move around the place) where he and his sister lived, and left it to
them as inheritance, so they should not have any problems for a while.
But that guy was looking for a job he could do to minimize his reliance
on his inherited wealth as much as possible.
So he turned to his hobby of painting, which he had originally done
while he was a shut-in, and after various works posted on the internet,
he finally received an offer to make illustrations for a book.
In an embarrassed tone, he admitted that he wanted me to be the first
person to see the book on the day it was published.
When he said he wanted to leave as much inheritance as possible for
his sister, he looked stronger than any person without a handicap on
their body, and I felt absolutely defeated.
I guess this was the first time I recognized him as an equal in my mind.
After we reconciled and reestablished our friendship, he and his sister
invited me to play a game with them, a certain “Worldgate Online”.
I was speechless when I saw their avatars in the game for the first time
two months after starting late, and when his sister told me with a
mischievous expression that their contents had been exchanged, I was
completely crestfallen to see him next to her looking so dainty and
embarrassed.
Seven years had passed since then.
Through in-game communications, that guy was invited to join Arks VR
Technology, and from time to time I would see his illustration in the
game.
On my end, I graduated from high school, entered college and worked
my way up to a master’s degree, and his sister also attended the college
I was studying in… Throughout these years, we’d been on adventures
together.
Sometimes the three of us would be added to a raid party and fight to
the death against a mighty raid boss.
Sometimes we would butt heads and engage in heated discussions,
sometimes we would challenge each other recklessly.
…And somehow, I found myself becoming a top-level player.
Then… an update earlier this year forced us to move on without him.
But that guy caught up with us much sooner than expected, and we
were finally able to get back to our original trio…
We’d have many adventurers together again. Yes, our relationship
would continue as before, as I’d always hoped… we’d always hoped.
“Saul, Reiji, something’s happening…!”
“What’s going on there?!”
“Onii-chan, calm down and tell me!”
“Let go of m-”
“Hey, you alright?! Hey?!”
The noise coming from behind me, and the muffled anguish sent chills
down my spine. The painful voice that shouldn’t be possible in this
game, where the sense of pain was almost nullified.
“What’s wrong?! Answer me! Dammit, what the hell’s happening
here?!”
“Onii-chan?! Answer me, please!”
Around us, the players collapsed one by one and disappeared.
The sky, or rather the space itself, turned red, and soon the noise
became worse, and the ground was gradually consumed by darkness.
“Ha, hahaha… This joke isn’t funny.”
The situation was so absurd that I could no longer do anything but
laugh.
I was swallowed by something that looked like a magic circle appeared
above and below my feet… and my consciousness went dark.