True Feelings
We are bound by fate.
We close our eyes at the story's last page and disappear into stars once more.
He had decided his fate with his own hands.
...But was that truly the end?
No matter how fiercely we deny or struggle against it, can we never escape fate's knot?
And now...
There's really not much time left.
It was the night before the end.
This dream, however many times I'd seen it, was changing little by little.
But I knew.
...
Is this dream ending too?
The festival... is over.
How was your Journey?
...I can't tell you. I did nothing worth mentioning.
I have no impressions to offer you, if that's what you're hoping for.
But...
No, Captain.
I... truly did nothing at all.
You don't seem to realize it, but...
I was never your Journey member. Not for a moment.
You always smiled at me, and I never once returned it.
...
So I don't deserve those words.
Are you... trying to be alone again?
...No.
I simply have no right to them.
Not me.
He walked a little way, then looked up at the sky.
...I don't see it that way.
I couldn't have reached this point by myself.
...
It wasn't just my Journey.
He was a figure in a dream.
Words spoken in dreams were only sleep talk. They changed nothing.
What could you possibly be happy about?
...There was nothing to be happy about.
You've always been like this.
Everything you do is for someone else's sake.
Your eyes are always on the people walking beside you, never on the road ahead.
You call it kindness. You call it sacrifice. You always try to protect everyone.
If this was a dream, couldn't I reach him, just for a moment?
Even if these feelings vanished into thin air... just this once.
That's the person I know. That's the kind of person you are, Captain.
But what about yourself? Do you care so little about what happens to you?
Are you just satisfied as long as you can smile at the end?
...
I said cruel things. Kept my distance. Turned my back on you.
I thought it would be fine if you were hurt. If you got angry with me.
But... Instead, you...
Even here, you were unchanged.
Why do you insist on protecting everyone?
How can you smile as though nothing's wrong?
When I'm standing right here... after giving up everything for you.
I no longer wanted to stop him.
I knew him well enough to know he would never give up.
...So all I had left was the truth.
The truth I'd kept buried for so long. The truth of my heart.
It's not kindness or sacrifice.
...What?
It's selfishness.
I'm not doing it for someone else...
I'm doing it for me.
Captain.
What... are you saying?
I protect them because I choose to.
...
Is that... what salvation means to you, Captain?
...How?
How... How can you say that...? *Sob*
The feelings I thought had died drew breath again.
They welled up from my deepest depths until I could no longer contain them.
...I tried to save you.
I told myself I'd save you, even against your will.
I thought it would be fine if you didn't understand. Even if you hated me...
As long as I could save even a trace of you...
I thought that would be enough.
*Sob* But then... why...?
Why would you say something like that?
...I'm sorry.
How can salvation built on sacrifice be salvation at all?!
...
...Would that really be enough for you?
If we can be happy... would that truly be enough for you...?
...I was selfish.
Yes. That would be enough for me.
*Sob* You idiot... *Sniffle* You idiot...
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry...
I'm sorry I couldn't save you...
For making you suffer. For letting you see me like this...
I'm... so sorry...
...!
But... I owe you an apology too.
...I'm sorry.
*Sob* Ahh... *Sob*...
Captain... Captain...
We are bound by fate.
Sometimes fate drives us into suffering, and we endure it until the light comes.
...Yes. Perhaps I'd hated it from the beginning.
That cold fate...
A fate from which no one could save themselves.
And now, it was time to wake from my dream.