"You have just seen the embodiment of all your anxieties and emotions that have been involuntarily repressed by you. They represent, in a way, your essence and fragility."

"But why," said Yumiko, "are you showing them to me?"

"All of this is so that you will not forget, Yumiko-chan, your aspiration. You've become entangled with other people's excitement lately, and so you've lost your grip."

"What have I done wrong? Yes, I am troubled by thoughts of people dear to me, but hasn't their appearance in my faceless life given me salvation?"

"Your mind has completely floated," the little girl kept saying. With a snap of her fingers, the surroundings around them transformed into their ordinary hall room, where her hunchbacked mother sat on the floor, staring aimlessly at the TV on. "It's a terrible sight. Shouldn't you feel sorry for your current home life, since you're so ashamed to tell your friends about your parents?"

"That sight really depresses me."

"It was for the sake of not seeing that scene again and feeling sorry for yourself that you decided to make a promise to yourself. Perhaps I am mistaken in our common beliefs?"

"You are right..."

"A quiet, gloomy house, where time itself had stopped flowing: that's where you wished you'd run away from. For all nine years, all you've wanted to do was to go to a prestigious institution of higher learning and to live far, far away from this oppressive, humiliating home. To come out of the four walls and see the world you have never seen, a goal that only intelligence and diligence can accomplish. All your efforts at school mustn't go to waste, must it?"

"That's exactly right."

"So why are you turning around?" The girl gritted her teeth. "Why do you turn around to people you wouldn't have cared for without meeting them? What moved you to stop at the very end? What moved you?! Answer!"

"I, I don't know... I don't know!" Yumiko closed her eyes in anguish, and the world around her fell silent. Slowly opening them again, she found herself in the kitchen, near the countertop, where a red apple had been cut into round pieces in front of her.

"You stopped doing anything. This was the consequence of the situations that had occurred. Feelings of regret, helplessness, and worry for others drove you into chaos in your impoverished mind."

Silence.

Glancing over at the cut apple, the little girl continued: "The apple in your dreams was a symbol of the happy life you long to reach for. Life, friends, and love – what meager needs for happiness alone... but I like it. Mango, in turn, was your key to forgetting and accepting yourself as you were hiding from. Tell me, are you really so tired that you were ready to give up at the end?"

"A happy life..." Yumiko could barely keep from chickening out, "...that's what I'm striving for. To achieve success in my future career and finally become a human being free of all troubles. I want to feel like... an ordinary, carefree girl."

The little girl hummed in thought.

"But still, seeing your doppelganger, dressed in her school uniform, cutting mangoes, you really saw the old Yumiko, who had no friends. It seems like friends are supposed to make each other happy, but why are you sad for them? Their presence in your personal life made you completely oblivious and stopped clinging to life with your promise. You were ready to blindly chase after a desirable life, so why stop?"

"You don't believe the old Yumiko is gone...?"

"Who knows," replied the girl. "Now, you are between two fires, and which life to choose. I am left to wonder which Yumiko will disappear and which will continue to exist. There is no other solution here."

"Can you answer one question that troubles me?"

"I already know what you're thinking, silly. I, on the other hand, am the embodiment of your consciousness. So, I wonder, do you really care about your friends... but once you have friends to spend your time with, how will you move out of the house? You can't rent an apartment because you don't have the money, and a college dormitory only accepts commuters who need a roof over their heads to live in a major metropolitan area."

"I could have asked my father."

"My father didn't give up on someone like you. He abandoned our family when we were kids. I still remember his cold face as he walked out the front door with his own things..."

Yumiko closed in, believing the truth of the little girl's words, who is her exact replica of a nine-year-old.

"All the more reason for you to go to a prestigious university abroad, since you will become inseparable from the members of the literary club."

"I understand."

Ryou Hayashi, a tall guy with perfect facial features like a model and thick, bobbed hair, appeared in front of the girl in the center of the kitchen.

"How do you feel about Ryou-kun?" the girl asked coldly, not taking her eyes off Yumiko. "Do you think if you knew your future would be a happy one with him, would you choose mangoes?"

"A happy future...?" Yumiko trembled, and the girl nodded. Lowering her eyes, she doubted herself, but she dared not hold back. "If I will not achieve with my own hands, but give up my will halfway... then this life cannot be happy for me. I want to achieve everything myself, for that is how I will be able to feel less miserable."

"All right, but how do you feel about this guy who is friendly to you?" made the girl Yumiko forget herself in her thoughts of the cute guy looking at her with a warm smile.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"I..." Remembering all the happy memories with the young man, Yumiko replied firmly, "...care for him!"

"However, this boy may leave you for his friends, and it is unlikely that you will ever meet afterwards. Come to think of it, we are left with the choice of saving this boy, which will attract to getting his heart... Ah, what a beautiful story! On the other hand, you have one friend who treats you with doubts, and hardly considers you her friend – she is a school idol, after all. What a pity she has feelings for the poor boy, too."

"Obviously, I won't ruin anybody's heart!"

"You'll only end up destroying yours," said the girl. "You like to play the victim so that society will think to pity you. Why would you do that, Yumiko-chan? You might as well sacrifice someone else's happiness to get your own."

"I can't do that. I'm too pathetic, don't you think...? But I am what I am."

"Once again, you will choose the most reliable outcome of events. Even Akiko-chan has noticed this trait of yours recently. Really, isn't there a better option, or are you so susceptible to feelings that you've become powerless? Why subject yourself to suffering for the sake of other people?"

Yumiko didn't dare move her quivering lips, causing the girl to utter a heartbreaking phrase that made Yumiko barely able to contain her emotions:

"Maybe you're addicted to your new friends?"

The girl's face was covered in excitement and indefatigable shock. Deep down, she knew she was, but desperately tried to prove to herself otherwise, that her addiction to the members of the literary club was confused with her overwhelming experiences.

"Too bad..." saddened the girl seriously, "I thought you might be able to take all the initiative and bring things to a happy end for us," and she took a brief pause. "Yumiko, do you really not remember me? I always came to you when you were sad, after all, and reminded you of our hope. Whenever you needed any support at all, I kept showing up, coming to you in your dreams and supporting you. More precisely, I was created by your subconscious mind to be your friend! It was with my help that you did not turn from the right path."

"Yu-chan..."

"All because when, as a child, you made a promise to yourself for the future and assured yourself that you would certainly fulfill it, you created me! From then on, for the next nine years, you kept that promise to yourself... How could you forget it?"

The little girl's face soon expressed seriousness, and she added:

"Do you remember why you made that promise to yourself?"

"I wished... to get away from my mother's house and live alone sooner."

"Not really," she surprised Yumiko. "You wanted to free yourself from the despair that has long been your chains, limiting your actions. You hated your family, for it did not contain the joy that was ordinary but desirable to you, but only bitterness and suffering. Yumiko-chan, it's time to realize that you don't want to get rid of your mother at all, but to get the freedom and commonness you long for.

Without really noticing the anticipation of something to look forward to, Yumiko blinked, and felt a sharp display of natural harmony and silence. Around them formed a warm and daylight, a silent and boundless field of green, to which no human bitterness ever reached. She found herself dressed in a gorgeous white dress, and a little girl stood before her.

"Believing it, you coveted independence."

The clear field was staring out toward the endless horizon, and fields of red blooming lilies danced nearby because of the wind, not lost in the true beauty of the natural expanse. Along the edges of the field were apple trees in their full bloom. Breathing in the clean air, Yumiko whirled her head around to see every corner of this green area. Nature, appearing out of nowhere, took over the girl's consciousness, and set it in order.

"Freedom..." Yumiko said in a calm voice, looking thoughtfully into the distance. "It felt so warm in my soul, and all my problems went away. I've never felt so peaceful."

"That's what your independence looks like," the girl smiled. "It only remains for us to reach it at last, so that our soul may behold eternal tranquility. For this is how you saw your future state of mind when you would have your independence."

"This place... represents my desired inner peace?"

"A happy family, a loving mother, and a father who often spent time with me: we didn't have all that, and that's why you promised to free us from the shackles of despair that still hold us to this day."

"How could I have forgotten that..." Yumiko took hold of her forehead. The girl nodded to her.

"Then why are you addicted to your friends? Don't you get enough from your shackles and decide to appropriate another one for yourself? Do you really want to drag them into your personal life so they can suffer, too?"

"Maybe I wanted to relax and forget my immediate problems," she replied suppressedly. "After all, these are the first people I've been able to build a relationship with, and our feelings are sincere, no matter how some might think otherwise. Thus, thanks to them, I began to meet more and more new acquaintances, which is a novelty for me, and now every fifth student at school has said hello to me. What kind of person am I, since I swam in other beliefs."

"Yumiko-chan, understand: you're getting weaker and weaker by giving all of yourself to your friends! I'm not saying it's bad, but... friends won't help you in fulfilling our promise."

The girl in the dress shook her head in moderation, disagreeing with the girl:

"Yes, because of them I almost failed, and would remain a slave to my promise. However, Yu-chan, I have now realized what I must accept. First of all, I will divide my needs, put the fulfillment of the promise I made to myself first, and stop being dependent on my friends. I believe I will gain independence in my soul, and I will gain freedom with ordinariness!"

Glancing up at the infinitely blue sky of clear skies and the horizon of green fields, Yumiko added, "I will no longer let go of my arms. I'll try my best, even if my arms don't sag yet, but I'll achieve what I want. My last year of school... should not be in vain!"

The little girl was surprised by her answer.

"Yu-chan," said the girl, "thank you for always being there to carry our burdens. I am grateful to have you with me."

With her eyes quietly closed, a happy smile appeared on the girl's face. Crying, Yumiko didn't hold back, and hummed every second.

"Thank you for these nine years... From now on, I will take care of myself, and I will give up the remnants of the past to take a step toward a happy future. Sleep well, Yu-chan."

Soon, everything around me was covered by a meager shadow. The trees and circles disappeared, once again forming an indistinct darkness. Yumiko concluded to herself, without excess, that even if she could not master the ability to change anything, she would do her best to make sure her actions were not in vain, and in spite of all the uncertainty, she would not hesitate. All because in order to change the influence of her environment, she must begin by changing herself.

She awoke on her bed in her perpetually hushed room and, opening her sleepy brown eyes, touched herself to the damp bags under her eyes. Realizing she had been crying in her sleep, she tried to remember, but failed. Alas, her dreams did not linger in her memory, causing her to remain forever in the dark, unable to recall her reveries.

"What happened..." she uttered, sleepily. "It's so warm in my soul that I don't even want to get up. What is this feeling of peace that has come over me?" the girl added, and fell asleep again, as if nothing had happened. Like a child, her affectionate smile involuntarily revealed itself as she slept.