Arc 3: Choosing Reality by Embracing Life
Road to a hero:
Three chances in another world
Chapter 30: To you, myself, Gray Kyojin
Gray: “Ugh…it’s cold…”
Rosemary: “You’re finally awake!”
Gray: “Loud…too loud…”
Gray opens his eyes, finding himself laying in a bed, in a cozy cold room. He notices that Rosemary had cut her hair as well.
Gray: “You…cut your hair?”
Rosemary: “Sokus hair got burned by fire…so I thought I’d cut my hair to make her feel better.”
Gray: “That’s nice of you…”
Rosemary: “It’s just a gesture.”
Gray: “These blankets are nice…”
Rosemary: “Dema flew us to a place called Greenvale. It’s a hidden village, and it’s snowing outside.”
Gray: “That explains the freezing room…so is Soku okay?”
Rosemary: “She hasn’t spoken to anybody…”
Gray: “And Edward?”
Rosemary: “He has been swinging his sword around outside since we got here.”
Gray: “I’m sorry.”
Rosemary: “For what?”
Gray starts to break down, trying to hide his face from Rosemary.
Gray: “If I hadn’t left….if I had just stayed…we might have been able to leave.”
Rosemary: “That was your choice…it looks that way in hindsight but we can’t do anything about that.”
Gray: “Yeah…but I just left you guys…with no reason or prior notice.”
Rosemary: “I know what it feels like to leave…then it just blows back in your face. You can talk to me about it if you want…”
Gray: “I had a relapse…I wasn't in a good place mentally before this…I tried to hide it from myself but I just fell back into the same problems I had before…so instead of making everybody else's life worse I figured…ya know…just give up.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Rosemary: “I understand more than you think…”
Gray: “We utterly lost…Ophelia…Musashi…Kioshi…all gone…”
Rosemary: “But, we got away…if we break down and become only focused on our loss…what we did wrong instead of growing and moving on…it’ll just bring worthlessness.”
Gray: “I…I understand…”
Rosemary: “You said you wanted to talk about something back in the castle…”
Gray blushes, trying to find the words he wants to speak.
Gray: “I…I LIKE YOU AND I DON’T KNOW HOW THIS STUFF WORKS AND I WANT TO KNOW IF YOU LIKE ME OR SOMETHING!”
Rosemary: “I…I have been wanting to ask you the same thing for a while…”
Gray: “Wait…”
Rosemary: “Why do you think I was sleeping in the same bed as you.”
Gray: “That’s a good point…I just never thought somebody would like me…”
Rosemary: “I would be a liar if I said I didn’t feel the same way.”
Gray: “So are we…ya know…a thing?”
Rosemary: “If you want to be…because I want to…”
Gray: “This is cringy.”
Rosemary: “Cringy?”
Gray: “Nothing...if we are together I want to say something…you are like a bright light to me, you’re scared, you’re mocked for not wanting to die which makes no sense, and you act like it doesn't affect you. If you weren’t with us, we would have died in every scenario, in Sokus’ house, the mansion, and even the castle. You have carried us the entire way and have no ego, you’re not super prideful…all this strength, and yet you act like a normally shy person. It’s…it’s inspiring.”
Rosemary: “I…I…I love you…”
Gray blushes and Rosemary leans in to kiss him, climbing into his bed they begin to embrace each other for the first time.
With all the events that occurred in a short time, these people broke down by the worlds they were placed in, and crawled to safety. Not flawless though, with all the deaths that occurred on the path the surviving it could be said it wasn’t worth it. Strugglers survive together, using their strength and drive to hold up everyone else. They aren't good people, but they aren't bad people either, they are normal people. With struggles, worries, fear, and rage, holding it in to achieve the things they want. Even in another world, with a different history, and a completely different way of doing things, the human spirit stays the same, never changing no matter what you look or feel like. They are truly human, every last one of them.
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Every problem, fear, sadness, anger, I have had you. From a nickname to a part of me that is more than me, I hate you. The real me, the guy I am, the person that sits alone doing nothing. Thinking about what I should do, what I can’t do, and what I want to do. I study and I feel like I do worse at school, I work out and I never gain muscle. I eat more and I don’t gain any weight, I try to be funny but I'm not funny. I am stuck in a dumb, weak, pitiful body. At the core of my heart, I am a selfish, hateful, prideful, egotistical douchebag that thinks everybody likes him while thinking nobody could ever like him, at least never like me. For any issue I got into, all I had to do was look stupid and happy; everyone would like it, and everyone would laugh. If I stay the ego, prideful person I am at the core of my being I will fail and fall so I used being pitiful as a joke. I know I suck and I know I’m weak so I use it to make others happy or at least try to. The only thing I love to do, the only thing I want to do is make others safe and happy.
And that’s the worst part about myself. Saying all that doesn't make me a good person. It only shows how self-centered and toxic I am. I want their best memories to have me in them. I want to be the person anybody thinks about when they think of someone they enjoy being around. I want this because I can’t imagine myself doing this with myself. I don’t do anything in every happy memory I have ever had. I do nothing but complain and do nothing about it and then there is you. You are a mask: a middle name, a voice, a nickname. You are Gray Kyojin, you are funny, you are confident, you are happy, and make other people happy. But you aren't me, you’re everything I want to be but in the end, I use you to get past my anxiety issues. I want to do so much but can’t even muster up the courage to try. Can’t ask for help, get a job, get a girlfriend, can’t do anything.
I want to be a helper. A teacher or somebody who sticks out in your mind. I want to be remembered and I wasted my life worrying about how I will get by day to day and never figured out about my future. In the end, I was going to be a retail 9-5 worker for the rest of my life with no partner, no kids, and who hated every second of being alive. Then my chance, my chance to leave it all behind in the form of a simple semi-truck. I took the chance of being able to escape it. Now I have friends and powers in another world and they don’t know me. They know you, Gray Kyojin the man who wants to be a hero. The idiot, the guy who gets back up, you stick out in everybody's mind, you are what I want to be and you took it from me. The only time they ever saw me was when I was angry or pouting and they hated me for it, and I hate you for it. I am in another world and I am still the same petty, angry, prideful, scared, weak, worthless baby who complains and cries about anything and everything.
I don’t want to be here anymore, so you take it, you take full control of the wheel. No more lying, no more masks or personas. Be who I wanted to be. You fix my mistake of leaving them and helping your friends, while also making a name for yourself. Continue to shine like gold in their memories as you do in mine. Don’t be a lonely person like I was. Be better, be a good man. I trust my life to you.
To you, myself
I love you
-Conner Kyojin
END OF CHAPTER
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