1.
From some day on, you had entered my life.
Now that Adrian was gone.
I idly chewed gum in my mouth and fiddled with the game console.
"For a while, I’ll probably be busy doing my own thing. If you want to spend time alone or take on training or requests, go ahead."
An old game console.
It could be replaced, and it was an outdated machine I didn’t need anymore.
But it was something Adrian had given me as a gift.
I didn’t want to throw it away.
I clung to it and used [Ether Editing] to change it.
It had become a Ship of Theseus, with the same outer shell but completely different contents.
Still, that didn’t matter. Heart and meaning were what counted. Even if it was a worthless object, everyone probably had at least one thing that felt precious to them.
"I’m bored."
Adrian, who always went everywhere with me, wasn’t here.
I didn’t know why you had left.
You were always with me.
Always by my side.
And the first person I had ever thought of as family.
I got up from where I had been half-lounging on the bed. Looking around, I saw that the room had changed a lot from when I first came here.
At first, it had been the kind of room you could find anywhere, a man’s room.
Now it was a room with my colors in it, a room that made it obvious, even at a glance, that a woman lived here too.
Thud!
I dove onto the narrow bed.
The pillow I buried my face in carried a faint smell of tobacco.
Adrian’s usual cigarette scent.
"...This makes me sound like a pervert."
The thought that I was sniffing Adrian’s scent made me strangely embarrassed, so I looked up at the ceiling.
The shabby ceiling came into view, and I remembered what Adrian had done to me last night.
"Ngh, ah... stop."
"Nope."
"Why are you so good at this, idiot..."
It felt like, after what happened at the fast-food place, some thick wall had suddenly exploded.
We had always been physically affectionate, but the frequency had gotten even worse.
He left marks like he was claiming me as his property. It was ticklish, and he sucked hard. It should have hurt, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
...I’m seriously messed up.
Even now, after he’d left, I was still thinking about him.
My reflection appeared on the screen of the game console in my hand.
My neck.
The area near my chest.
On the places where skin showed without taking off my clothes, red flowers were blooming.
I pressed on one of the marks, then pulled my hand away at the ticklish sensation.
I was uneasy. What if Adrian, wandering around alone, had gotten into trouble and was being chased? He had always dragged trouble and fights behind him. Maybe he had caused some incident somewhere and left me behind on purpose.
The meaning of emotion.
What I felt when I thought about you.
...Was it affection, or love?
I still didn’t know.
I had never thought about it, never given it, and never received it.
Adrian was my first friend. Adrian was also the first person to show me kindness without asking for anything in return. Everything I experienced with him was a first, so life was always new.
Though leaving a kiss mark on my neck didn’t seem like something friends were supposed to do.
When Adrian kissed me, I didn’t resist. If anything, I accepted it gladly.
"...I really am crazy."
I got dressed and went out.
If I left the room full of his marks, I thought maybe I could stop thinking for a while.
My aimless steps eventually gathered in one place.
The familiar spot where I always came with Adrian. I knew it well.
"Mister."
"Cough! Ugh... What? Silver Wolf?"
"Yeah."
"Where’s Adrian? Why did you come alone?"
The old man, who had been snoring with his chair tipped back, sprang upright.
His heavy belly jiggled, and I frowned.
"Lose some weight."
"You too? Tch, I’ll handle it myself."
The old man clicked his tongue, then snapped his fingers as if he’d remembered something. He went into the back room and came out carrying a box.
"This is something Adrian asked me to pass on."
"...What is it?"
"Huh? You didn’t hear? It’s your clothes."
I remembered.
When we were buying Hanabi’s clothes, Adrian had said something about it.
Remembering that girl’s face, the one I wanted to tear apart, made me frown.
Intruder, outsider. The disgust stretched out, and irritation started to build.
To wipe away that unpleasant feeling, I immediately opened the box and looked at the clothes.
As expected, I had been worried for nothing.
It was so Adrian. He knew exactly what my taste was.
The pants were short, but the coat was practical. A badge Adrian had bought was hanging from the collar, and it was the kind of outfit that made it obvious to anyone that this person was a hacker.
"Can I go into the room and put it on right away?"
"Ugh, you like it that much? It’s hard to watch, seriously..."
I changed outfits and came right back out.
The clothes fit perfectly, with no discomfort at all.
On my right ankle was the dagger I had always carried around since long ago.
And at the collar around my neck was a white mane, like a wolf’s fur.
"How embarrassing."
"You old fossil."
"Oh, right. Come to think of it, where did Adrian go? You always went around together, so why isn’t he here today?"
The old man asked as I turned my head to check the clothes.
"I don’t know either. He said we should go our separate ways for a bit. Maybe he’s out taking on a request?"
"He never came to me asking for work... Well, fine. I guess the bastard has his own private life."
After chatting for a moment, I left.
Maybe because Adrian, who always made a racket and acted so frivolously, wasn’t here.
I felt strangely empty and disappointed.
Did he have some secret he had to hide from me? I showed you everything. The thought that friends could have secrets from each other made me feel bad. After all the things you did to me, too.
I shook my head and pushed the thought away.
Neon distortions rippled through the air, and I slid my sunglasses up over my forehead.
Before Adrian left.
A proof I had learned on my own, and a mark of the Path.
Not only could I hack with [Ether Editing] now, but starting yesterday I had also become able to wield the Path of Elation. I hadn’t told Adrian because I wanted to surprise him later when I was carrying out requests, but with Adrian gone, there was no one to explain it to.
"Ah..."
I had come out to think alone.
And yet the only thing in my head was that man.
"Boring."
Even playing games wasn’t fun.
Even eating something delicious while wandering around the market felt the same.
I drifted aimlessly, then went home.
Since when.
Had my life been dyed in your colors?
I changed into comfortable clothes and lay down on the bed, thinking that.
Since the first time we met?
No, Adrian back then was the strange one.
You could practically call him a kidnapper.
A so-called illegal orphan with nothing to his name swung a dagger at him, and he calmly pulled the dagger out of his hand and told me to come with him? Thinking about it now, he was basically a lunatic.
The way he killed the homeless man who rushed at us, then calmly held out his hand.
That hand, stained red with blood, gave me chills.
We went home and ate together.
We rummaged through scrap mountains.
We talked about dreams.
I believed him. I never thought about running away.
Because the hand I had grabbed never let go of me, I never let go of the hand I’d taken either.
My dream of becoming a hacker.
Even that distant dream had been fulfilled by Adrian.
Pixels warped over my hand, and a cartridge was summoned.
The summoned cartridge looked ordinary, but it was marked LV.5.
A cartridge that could be leveled up.
A treasure that, if the people of Punklorde found out about it, every last one of them would reach out to seize.
You gave it to me. You gave me dreams, hope. So I won’t forget. That hand that carelessly pressed this cartridge into mine in front of the fast-food place. Your hand was warm.
Certainty, trust.
Even I couldn’t trust myself, and yet you... why did you...?
What came after that was Adrian’s behavior. Adrian’s face, which had been smiling just a moment ago, twisted. Crumpled, that foolish face. You smiling, crying, silently sobbing as tears fell.
Without saying a word, he hugged me.
He didn’t make a sound.
Adrian’s body trembled.
You were human too.
That image of you, always so strong and seemingly unbreakable, was breaking apart.
I could only silently take hold of that hand, trembling endlessly.
A brief embrace.
After that, I resolved to become stronger.
After that incident, we became strangely more physically affectionate, but it didn’t matter. I had no intention of avoiding it either. If you fell apart, I wanted to stay by your side. You were the one who caught me just before I broke.
"...Adrian."
I stepped out onto the veranda.
The chilly air of Neon City greeted me.
The singing I used to hear every morning was gone now.
I had hated hearing it, so I gritted my teeth and edited it out with [Ether Editing].
"Why did you take me in that day?"
He couldn’t answer.
He had jokingly said he took me in thanks to a divine revelation.
Adrian doesn’t lie.
Then he really did take me in because of a divine revelation.
Adrian’s figure, running ahead first.
Even receiving a divine revelation.
I’m chasing after you.
Will there ever come a day when I can get ahead of you?
I can barely keep up with you even now.
If I realized I had become a burden to you... could I still give you up that day?
I don’t want to become dead weight and hold you back.
Even if it’s pathetic, I want to stay with you.
Those contradictory feelings mixed together, and I sat in the veranda chair.
I wait for you.
"...When are you coming back, seriously?"
2.
Time passed.
A week went by, and now there was still no news.
You still hadn’t come back.
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