Love in the Shadow of Roboko ~ My Feelings, Left Here ~
I'm Roboko. A clumsy, slightly useless side character, madly in love with the protagonist, Takeru.
At school, Takeru is always next to his childhood friend Akane. She's energetic, cheerful, and most of all, they're perfect together. Seeing them talk makes my chest ache. But it's okay. Because I'm just a side character.
Then one day, Haruto, the super-popular and ridiculously hot guy in class, confesses his feelings to me out of nowhere! 'I've been watching you for a while, Roboko. Being with y
Love in the Shadow of Roboko ~ My Feelings, Left Here ~ - A night at rock bottom, the tears of a side character.
The heavy warehouse door was pried open from the outside.
*Screeeeech... CRACK!*
The light of the setting sun flooded into the pitch-black darkness. The brightness made Roboko squeeze her eyes shut. The backs of her eyelids glowed orange. The dusty air, the smell of sweat, the old mats — everything was instantly repainted in the colors of dusk.
"You okay, Roboko?"
At that voice, her heart leaped.
(*Takeru-kun.*)
She opened her eyes timidly. There he stood, backlit by the sun. His hair, slightly mussed from bedhead, glowed golden like a halo. His hand was reaching out to her. Just like that day. The day of their middle school graduation. The same face he'd worn when he found her crying behind the gymnasium. Takeru-kun's fingertips were about to touch her shoulder. In that moment, the blood in her veins felt like it was boiling.
But then.
"Takeru! Roboko-chan!"
Akane-chan's voice turned everything to ice.
Behind Takeru-kun stood Akane-chan, out of breath. Her ponytail was disheveled, her brow furrowed with worry. She rushed over without a second's hesitation and grabbed Takeru-kun's arm tightly.
"Thank goodness, really! I've been so nervous wondering when the maintenance people would get here. Roboko-chan, you must have been so scared too."
Akane-chan's hand was wrapped around Takeru-kun's arm. Her fingers were gripping so hard they were turning white.
(*Ah.*)
Roboko slipped away from the hand Takeru-kun had extended toward her. His fingers cut through empty air, uselessly. Takeru-kun's eyes widened just a fraction. The reflection of herself in his pupils looked terribly small.
"I-I'm fine. I..."
Her voice trembled. Her hands, resting on her knees, were shaking in tiny tremors. She could feel the blood draining from her fingertips.
(*Please, no more.*)
"Roboko?"
Takeru-kun started to say something. But she couldn't listen. Akane-chan was clinging to his arm. Her fingers were creasing the sleeve of his uniform. The voice she'd heard inside the warehouse — *I've been watching you for a long time* — spun round and round in her head, then faded into the distance.
(*Those words weren't a lie.*)
(*And yet.*)
*Still, I've got Akane.*
Those words became a blade and stabbed into her chest. It felt like they hit bone with a grinding, crunching sound.
"I'm sorry."
Roboko turned her back on the two of them. Her legs nearly tangled as she broke into a run. Her knees were shaking. She couldn't support her own weight and stumbled several times.
"Roboko!"
Takeru-kun's voice chased after her from behind. Still, she couldn't turn around. If she turned around, something would break. Something precious inside her would shatter into pieces. She felt like those shattered fragments would never fit back together again.
She kept running, weaving through the shadows of the school buildings. Her breath came in gasps. The back of her throat made a wheezing sound. Her side hurt. Even pressing her palm against it couldn't stop the pain surging up from inside. Tears blurred her vision. Her eyes were open, but everything looked distorted, as if she were underwater. She ran down the stairs, through the school gate, and cut across the shopping district. She passed the shuttered storefronts without even realizing one of them was Sweetie. Only the sound of her own footsteps echoed, unnaturally loud.
By the time she reached the apartment on the hill, it was already completely dark. The sunset that should have been clinging to the edge of the sky had long since vanished, replaced by a deep indigo, nearly black.
She climbed the old stairs of Kageyama Heights one step at a time. The rusty handrail creaked every time she put her weight on it. That sound overlapped with the sound of her own bones grinding. She tried to take out her key, fumbling through her pockets again and again. Her fingertips were trembling so finely that the key jingled. She couldn't grip it properly. On the third try, she finally pulled it out — it was shockingly cold. Her hand shook in front of the keyhole, and only the sound of metal scraping against metal echoed through the hallway. With a *click*, the door finally opened.
She stepped one foot into the entryway.
The moment she closed the door, she collapsed to her knees. As if the thread holding up her weight had suddenly snapped.
Her bag hit the floor with a soft thud. Textbooks scattered, but she didn't even have the energy to pick them up. The corner of a notebook was bent. Her math workbook lay face-down on the floor, still open.
"Ugh... uuu..."
A sound escaped her. It was a crushed noise, one she couldn't believe was her own.
(*Takeru-kun was looking at me, though.*)
*I've been watching you for a long time.*
The voice she'd heard in the darkness clung to the depths of her ears and wouldn't leave. To be precise, it wasn't just the voice. The movement of the air in that moment, the way her heart had jumped, the feel of the sweat seeping into her palms — it had all clumped together and lodged itself in the back of her throat. She wanted to spit it out, but she couldn't.
(*He was looking at me.*)
Just thinking that made the depths of her chest grow warm, spreading slowly — and then, immediately, freeze solid.
Because, *still, I've got Akane.*
"Ah... aaaah..."
She cried, stifling her voice. Afraid that opening her mouth would let out a loud wail, she clenched her teeth. She gripped her uniform skirt tightly. Tears dripped down, staining the fabric. The spots where the tears fell turned dark, and the darkness spread slowly outward.
(*It can't be me.*)
(*In the end, the one he chooses is Akane-chan.*)
The scene from earlier came flooding back. Akane-chan's hand wrapped around Takeru-kun's arm. Those slender, white fingers. That was reality. The words in the warehouse had been nothing but a whim. Maybe, in the darkness, he hadn't even realized it was her. She'd just misunderstood. The thought of herself misunderstanding, of getting carried away even for a moment, seemed utterly ridiculous.
(*The protagonist is Akane-chan.*)
(*And I'm just a side character.*)
Words she had told herself over and over again. But now, each one of those words stabbed into her chest like shards of glass. The more she told herself, the more the wounds multiplied.
Exhausted from crying, she collapsed face-down onto the cold entryway floor. The chill of the flooring stuck to her cheeks, which were a mess of tears. It felt cool and pleasant, yet the cold seemed to seep all the way to her core. How long had she lain there? Her hands and feet grew cold, the sensation in her fingertips fading away. Her head grew hazy, and her own sobbing sounded distant.
*Ping.*
Her smartphone vibrated in her uniform pocket.
Roboko slowly lifted her head. On the screen, blurred by tears, were the words: *Himura Haruto*. The letters looked doubled and smeared. Her eyelids were swollen.
(*Haruto-kun.*)
She couldn't answer.
Her fingertips wouldn't move. Even when she tried to put strength into her thumb, it just trembled and couldn't touch the screen. The call ended. And then, immediately, a message arrived.
*I'm outside your place right now. I know you're home because the lights are on. I have something I want to talk about.*
Her heart clenched tight, as if it were being crushed. She pressed her hand against her chest. It hurt. It really hurt. And yet, she hated this organ for continuing to beat.
(*Outside my place...*)
She looked outside through a gap in the curtains. Her legs tangled, and she leaned against the wall as she approached the window. On the road lit by the orange glow of the streetlamp, a single long shadow stretched out. It was Haruto-kun. He stood under the streetlamp in front of the apartment, looking straight up at her window. His face was hidden in shadow. But she could tell he was standing perfectly still, both hands in his coat pockets.
*Ping.*
Another message. This time, a different name. *Kamiya Yukito*.
*I heard you were locked in the warehouse. I want you to tell me why you're crying.*
Roboko's throat made a small, hiccupping sound.
(*Why is everyone...*)
She gripped her phone with trembling fingers. Haruto-kun was standing in front of her apartment. Yukito-kun had seen right through her state, as if he'd been watching. Their intense affection pressed in on her relentlessly — through the screen, through the walls. It felt like her own outline was being crushed under the weight of their feelings.
(*Even though I'm liked by such amazing people...*)
She clutched her phone to her chest and hugged her knees. She curled her back, trying to make herself as small as possible. The bones of her knees pressed painfully against her chest.
If only this affection had come from Takeru-kun. If only this message had been from Takeru-kun, if only it were Takeru-kun standing in front of her apartment.
Of course, there was no way that was true. Takeru-kun was surely with Akane-chan right now. She was probably walking him to the station, the two of them heading down the road together. She'd say something, he'd laugh, and then...
Just imagining it made the tears overflow again. The back of her eyes grew hot, and liquid poured out endlessly. She was hurting herself, yet she couldn't stop the fantasy.
(*Why isn't it Takeru-kun?*)
(*Why does it have to be Takeru-kun, and no one else?*)
She reread the messages from Haruto-kun and Yukito-kun. Her eyes traced the words, but they didn't register in her head at all. Both of them were serious. They were seriously thinking about her. And yet, her heart didn't stir in the slightest. If anything, she was trembling with the desire to escape from that weight. Being needed by someone felt suffocating. The more she was needed, the more she was confronted with the narrowness of her own heart — that the only person she wanted to need her was Takeru-kun.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
She didn't even know who she was saying it to. There were too many people she wanted to apologize to, and the words just spun in circles.
Guilt toward Haruto-kun. Apology toward Yukito-kun. And disgust toward herself for feeling this way. It all mixed together, churning inside her chest. Her stomach felt queasy, like something was about to surge up.
Their affection was genuine. They were looking at her seriously. And yet, she...
(*My heart is only for Takeru-kun.*)
She had been forced to reconfirm that fact, painfully so. At the same time, she had been forced to witness, painfully so, the reality that Takeru-kun would not choose her. The pairing of Takeru-kun and Akane-chan, acknowledged by everyone around them. The perfect couple.
She wasn't even allowed to come between them. Her only role was to maintain an appropriate distance — as a classmate, as a friend of his girlfriend's friend. That was the only way she could live.
Time passed.
Her phone didn't vibrate again. But she didn't have the courage to check if Haruto-kun had gone home. She couldn't even bring herself to open the curtains again. She tried to type a reply to Yukito-kun, but her fingers trembled and she couldn't write anything. She couldn't even type the three characters for "I'm fine." She couldn't lie, and she couldn't tell the truth. She couldn't do either.
Eventually, she faintly heard a chime in the distance, signaling midnight.
Roboko finally stood up from the entryway. Her body was heavy. As if she were carrying a lump of lead, her whole body was heavy. She leaned against the wall and walked down the hallway, one step at a time.
She stumbled into her room and stopped in front of the bookshelf. She pulled out a single notebook, tucked away in the very back. A battered star pattern on the cover. The corners were frayed, and the star illustration on the cover was peeling in places. Her secret lover — the notebook where she had poured out her feelings for Takeru-kun ever since middle school.
She sat on the bed and slowly turned the pages. The bed springs creaked once,
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