"Hiku... Hiku..."

Wood spirits in a park where whimpers stain the sunset.

There were five children in the park with neglected trees planted to the extent of my apologies. Four of them are boys, all of whom surround one girl.

"Yay, germs"

"Wow, that's disgusting."

Typical figs. I wanted to stop by, the boys who can curse and sand. The gray-haired girl, being cursed, is squatting and crying.

... I remember this sight.

This was when I just enrolled in elementary school. I was born with skin and hair that was whiter than people and I was spooked and jerked off like this.

It was a neighborhood park, where I occasionally played alone, and the boys from senior year came and were made to hate and curse.

At the time, I was surrounded by boys with bigger bodies than myself, I couldn't do anything about it, and I could only weep at the malice thrown at me.

I have nothing to say back, let alone get angry with. Did the boys lose interest in me slightly, kick me in the leg gently, and then disappear somewhere.

And then I kept crying alone, and when I was about to be at night, I finally stopped crying. No, I thought I had to go home, and I forced myself into tears.

And when I left the park to go home, even though I blushed my eyes, I met two childhood friends perfectly.

"Wow, knitwear. I'm going home now..."

Whether it's the return I've been playing on the school athletic field, the boy with the clothes drooling and abrasions on his hands and feet - Haruki Kujo stopped the words when he saw how I was doing.

"... Were you crying, knitwear? And what happened to those footprints?"

Haruki worried about me or didn't absurd her voice, but there were anger emotions in her eyes. So, I couldn't tell the truth, and if I didn't want to show embarrassment, some of it was a little mean, and I lied.

"Hey, I just fell a little, didn't I?

I thought I was a bad liar.

"For some reason, who did this to me?"

Haruki reinforced her words a little like she was annoyed by me spitting lies. That scared me, and I couldn't stop a droplet from floating on my eyeballs.

"Ah..."

I didn't mean to, but there were tears. Now it's like you're scared of Haruki.

But it's already late. Haruki looked like a bad bat and was confused.

There, another childhood tamer - Hitachi Ridge himself pinched his mouth.

"In the meantime, I'll send you your coat home today. If you walk too late, you'll be pissed off and... dangerous"

Ridge had settled in for the age of 6 and had the impression of being a little more adult than we were. Unlike Haruki, the clothes were barely dirty, and it felt like a step toward adulthood.

"... right. But we'll have a proper conversation tomorrow."

Haruki snorted at Ridge's own words, but still didn't seem convinced.

Then, I had the two of you drive me home. Exactly, my mother quickly realized that I had been abused, but on that grounds I left school. That's not because I was abused, but because one spring tree in a straight line didn't feel like listening to me and going to sell fights to the boys in high school.

Because of me, I don't want to see the Spring Trees hurt.

That thought was in me at the time.

But what really worried me was that it wasn't Spring Tree, but Ridge himself.

It was after school the second day after school. At that time, my mother, who had left me a message to go shopping, was killing my time watching TV at home. Then, after a while, the intercom rang.

"Yes, who is it?

Now that I think about it, I want to say how careless it is, but I opened the front door without being particularly sure.

There's a breathless spring tree.

"Come, knit!

"What, ah..."

I was grabbed as I opened the door and taken out.

"Ridge found the guy who was abusing you and went to fight alone."

"Oh no...!

"So we're going, too. I'll get back at you."

"And we need to stop. We have to stop the Ridge."

I shook off the pull of a belligerently laughing spring tree and rushed out on my own feet in a hurry.

We have to stop it quickly. We have to stop Ridge before he sells his fight.

That's how Haruki runs desperately from rush to me.

"Don't worry. Ridge is so strong."

With an unyielding smile, he has said with certainty of Ridge's own victory.

I did.

That's a lie. Ridge himself is a grown man, not a mess like Haruki. So I'm sure you've never had a fight.

And I decided, I moved my legs desperately.

But my thoughts will soon be denied.

Ridge was in a neighborhood park. This is where I was abused.

So, what about Ridge himself? Four were fighting against boys far bigger than their older selves, four on one.

But Ridge's own, it wasn't a kid fight I knew.

Ridge seemed to be surrounded by the boys and slapped from all directions. However, one of the injuries, not even a drop of blood, had been shed on its meridian self.

Physical difference with older people that I felt so overwhelmed when I was a kid. That's also enough of a difference between six months of elementary school and them graduating this year to say isolation.

I can't believe that won't be a problem...

The boy, who was beaten from behind, was picked in the ear by Kurli and the spinning ridge himself and dropped straight from his face to the ground. From above, Ridge stepped on his head relentlessly, no, as a stepping stone, shooting at the boy's groin, approaching from the left, with his fist.

"Guuuuuuuuuuu... Yikes! is there blood from the nose......!

"Ah, ah...!

A boy who looks at his own blood and suddenly disrupts and holds his nose, and a boy who also seems to squat painfully to hold his groin and breathe.

Both shake their bodies in pain and turn a frightened gaze at Ridge himself again.

Speaking of that ridge itself, on the other hand, it pokes and nullifies the remaining two equally precisely at the weakness of the human body.

And less than a minute after we got to that park, they were equally in tears in pain, lying down in front of the Ridge itself.

Me and Haruki stand tall and speechless in that childless way of fighting the Ridge themselves. Haruki looked somewhere like a long-awaited gaze, and I pointed my gaze at Ridge myself, including fright.

"Apologize to the coat"

The first time I heard a voice from Ridge that didn't allow me to say whether or not I had an order tone, I stuck the words to stop.

"Ugh... ooh... ooh...!

Because of their older pride, or the boys who show resistance to bowing their heads to the person they were abusing. But we who stand at the entrance to the park, no, look at me. There's an irrational rage in them.

When I felt it sharply on my skin, I accidentally shook my body with a vikri, but I could see their hearts freezing in such a cold voice that I had never even heard it right after.

"─ Still not enough?

That goes without saying.

It was the word Ridge himself directed at them. In the dark, I'm afraid there's not enough pain--

"Oh, I'm sorry -!

"Forgive me, because I won't do it again!

They sat down on the spot crying. Towards the Ridge itself, not me.

That's what the Ridge couldn't forgive, staring at them again.

"Am I apologizing to the wrong person? Or I don't know yet."

Though in a gentle tone, as in the earlier commanding tone, no lower than that, to a frightening voice, they turned a screaming apology to me.

"I won't do it again, forgive me... forgive me already!

They begged forgiveness to scream, and while they were wondering how I should answer, they fled the scene to see if they could no longer stand it.

If one escapes, cut it one after the other.

Nor did Ridge try to stop it.

... heavy silence flows.

Ridge distorted his face to regret that he had done it.

I don't know what to say.

Haruki feels the awkwardness flowing between me and Ridge himself, scratching his pompous cheeks.

I... hate myself. Ever since this time.

I know what Ridge himself fought for, and I feel scared of Ridge himself.

In the first place, the way I was supposed to drive him into such a rough mess.

And I couldn't say anything at this time.

Even now, I hate it.

But Ridge laughed bitterly at me for falling into self-loathing and not being able to say anything.

"... I think the white hair in the coat is beautiful."

Praised me for what I disliked.

"If the country changes a little, if the world changes a little, the knit will surely seem like it from everyone. So I guess I can be confident in the way I look. I think I'm pretty about who told me, and Haruki probably is."

"Yes, no, stay, well, yeah. The... what... I think the sweatshirt will be a so-so beauty in the future!

Haruki was shy and distracted, but at the end of the day he said it in such a way as to leave it to momentum, but he was still happy.

No matter how creepy or despised, these two, only childhood friends dear to me, say I'm beautiful.

That was unhelpfully pleasing and comforting.

Ridge smiles gently as he strokes and comforts my head in tears of joy.

"So come back to school. Don't worry, I'll protect your coat."

"... ma... Also, if I get bullied... are you gonna help me like right now?

"Yeah, be sure."

I promise, Ridge's own pinky finger layered on my pinky finger.

I had that thin, little finger that looked so big that I relieved myself.

And at the same time.

I fell in love with Ridge.

It was not until this time that I was not yet aware of it, but became reassured that I was on the Ridge's own side.

But that suddenly happened when I was just 10 years old, with no foretaste.

In casual routine.

Words returned to Haruki, who, as usual, invited Ridge to play during his unusual rest time.

"─ You, who?

I can't forget that word. No, Haruki, who was told in front of me, will be more unforgettable.

Because then.

Because the days we spent together didn't turn out to be.

Ridge had amnesia since.

Ridge had forgotten his memories of spending time with us, his classmates and his parents. What was left of him was the human way of being himself. Who I am and what I am in a position to do. That was all.

The doctor said it was limited amnesia. Sometimes the memory can come back with some kick.

Believing it, we all cared to deal with it in the same way we used to. But that meant nothing, and Ridge's condition followed a path of deterioration to the point of forgetting that he had even lost his memory.

The doctor repeatedly examined Ridge's own body for possible brain abnormalities, but he said nothing was wrong. Unexplained memory problems. That, too, is a limited loss of memory by intent.

I didn't know why. I wonder how many times he pleaded with the Ridge himself crying. A little bit, he said he remembered us.

Every time, Ridge says the same thing and forgets the next day.

A pile of memories disappears. Once, I could still stand it. I was able to think that I should build it up again from scratch.

But it broke my heart when it was repeated over and over again.

No more... I didn't think I could.

I didn't want to get scratched anymore. I didn't want to be forgotten anymore.

That overlap of thoughts made me............ give up.

That was true not only of me, but also of my classmates, my own parents. After experience has shown that Ridge's memory impairment occurs after he becomes aware of it, it is disproportionate.

No one tried to remind Ridge himself anymore.

Instead, he forged a new relationship with Ridge himself.

However, my heart was already broken and I was hesitant to approach Ridge. I didn't like its weakness and wanted to be strong. He said that if I got stronger, one day, I might be able to regain my relationship with Ridge myself, too.

But reality is cruel, before the day came...... Ridge left the world.

Difficult regrets tightened my chest.

A little more, a little more, this might not have happened if I had the courage. If this were to happen, I should have stayed with Ridge more. That could have changed this fate.

My life is full of such self-loathing regrets.

Summoned by different worlds, they poke at their weakness.

Feel his shadow in his ugly obsession or in someone he can't possibly be out of love with.

Now...... when you're on his side, you have a reassuring self.

I hate myself for that.

The only way I could ask for help was to help me, the weak one, who was always here to help me, and myself, who was making promises to Ridge.

─ ─ ─ Sleep strokes my head.

"Hmmm..."

The warmth transmitted from shoulder to back that the uncertain brain feels and the conflicting atmospheric cold. If I opened my heavy eyelids, the darkness of the night just moonlight would have spread in front of me.

"Finally awake, you sleepyhead."

I am accidentally called from my back and hacked.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Haruki! Me..."

The place I woke up was the city's outer walls. Why he had fallen asleep in such a place, because the emperor and the soldiers who had assumed the protection of the city had instead been entrusted with the protection of the city, which had become thin because of the tragedy of the collapse of the continental bridge in the Imperial administration area. But I'm not used to hatred and staying up late, and I seem to have been retiring along the way.

"I'm so sorry, Haruki"

"I don't care. Especially if something's happened, and you're tired, you can still sleep."

Spring Tree controls me for trying to stand up apologizing and lets me sit still. Spring Tree is wearing thin even though it's night, and his jacket is hung like a blanket from my shoulder to back. On the way to the watch, I guess Haruki hung me up when I fell asleep.

"That...... thanks. Even Haruki would be tired..."

"I'm not as weak as a knit, problem nashing. Instead, you'd better get some rest from your training with Hinata."

"Weakness is superfluous. But thank you, Haruki. If I rest a little longer, I'll change my watch."

Haruki looked outside the outer wall.

"'Cause peace itself, huh? One demon won't come."

"It's not a demon, Hinata, you might come home, right? I'm going to a dangerous place. That's when I can't just rest."

"I'm out, I'm serious in a weird place. I don't care how much we skip, I don't think it has anything to do with how cheap he is.

"I know that. It's a matter of feelings."

When something happens, I don't want to overlap my regrets again. I wanted to do the least I could do.

"It's a matter of feelings..."

Haruki shrugged profoundly.

"─ Is that because it resembles Ridge?

I bowed my face to Haruki's inquiry.

"... does Haruki think so too?

I, out of hindsight, did not look at Haruki, held my own knee, and groaned small.

"I don't know... because at times like this, people's subjectivity is probably confused and the essence is rewritten into it. In this case, the cause is his name. That's not a real name either. It's a fake name.... So no matter how much I feel about Ridge in Hinata, I guess that's my fault. He denied it."

Just like me, Haruki seemed to think deeply about it again. Naturally, for me and Haruki, the name Hinata was definitely a factor that started to identify the two of us. And Haruki, who took it calmly and analyzed that his subjectivity could not be guessed.

"... right, I guess. I can't believe the Ridge of Death is alive in another world and we're summoned to that world... there's no such good story."

I seemed to return my words to Haruki, and shook my throat, as I told myself the fruit of it.

Night breeze cools your body. I hold down my trembling arm with my hand and close my eyes.

He's not a ridge. Someone else by the name of Hinata.

Yeah, I told you over and over again, but my heart didn't convince me.