2 Saturday | Saturday Strange Tales | Polar Bear (Carbonated) x Wind-blown (June Sleep-talk) x Unrequited Love (Spot the Difference)

"Buy me some strongly carbonated ramune, darling♡"

Since graduating from a local university, I have maintained a long-distance relationship with him.
Lately, I have been thinking about bringing that distance to a progressive end.
One night, after we had a trivial argument about the future and days passed without us meeting,
somewhere between dream and reality, I apparently said exactly that over the phone.
It is vaguely nonsensical. It can't be helped; it is, after all, a lucid "sleep-talk of June."

Time is nothing more than a variable interval connecting two arbitrary points.
Wednesday is Thursday, where I suppress the urge to go see him right away and somehow muddle through with a video call.
Once the Friday sunset sinks below the horizon, tomorrow will be a sunny Saturday.
With the five-day workweek introduced, borrowing a worldview is easy, isn't it?

A backpack stuffed with snacks is also waiting.
Wake up super early and come see me. Let's put on our backpacks and go for a walk.
The blue carbonated water with its fizzing bubbles will bring a refreshing breeze, and it seems it will become a touch of refreshment bursting into the heavy sky of June.
Fizz fizz fizz fizz fizz fizz fizz

At that time, I was inside a dream like a sugar cube.
So, that sugary voice is absolutely not my will. It's just sleep-talk.
That ♡ is definitely not mine. ...Who is it? Who added it on their own?
There's no way I could say something like that; I'd be too embarrassed. You should leave the "darling" stuff to Jitterin'Jinn, really. ...Though I won't tell anyone that my cheeks are fizzing a little bit.

But, you know.
I don't know any fairy tales about distance making a couple stronger.
Next Saturday. I'll try being super clingy for a change.

◇

A slight cognitive error caused the world of the two to diverge.

"Buy me some strongly carbonated cola, darling"

For a while, I couldn't believe that usual sigh of hers.
Because it was half a tone sweeter and just a little more childish than her usual auditory hallucinations.
Is it a dream or reality, or a bug? There is a slight possibility that it is a line from my own deep-seated desires.
No, it must be that her true feelings accidentally leaked out. You tsundere, you.

The depths of my chest rippled like black carbonation, and I couldn't sleep as usual.
That half-tone tempo was amplified in the back of my ears, and before I knew it, I was standing at a late-night convenience store.
As a result of searching for "black AA" with a clear head, what remained in my hand was—
Of course, a pack of "black AA" batteries. Manganese batteries, I suppose.

After graduating from university, our schedules drifted apart, and we lost the opportunity to spend time together. Come to think of it, the club schedule stopped syncing at some point. It must be a fatal system bug. It's quite troublesome that there's no sign of recovery.
That's why being pushed around by Miki like this is a typical symptom of Miki-deficiency.
Time without Miki feels like an eternity. Let alone a future without Miki, which cannot exist in terms of spatial structure. It ignores the laws of physics.

Regular intake is necessary for the treatment of essential element deficiency. Or so the AI thought sympathetically.
Continuing, it kindly and carefully explained that the cause of the onset was a lack of face-to-face contact. As expected of my only friend, Miki-chan. Abbreviated as "Sasumiki." It has a great ring to it.
Miki-chan's point is correct. That's right, since we love each other so much, there is no choice but to live with her now. Contact disorders are solved instantly if you make physical contact. Then, everything will go well. She must be happy that we can finally be together.
As soon as the night broke, I headed to the city where Miki was waiting. With the real AA batteries.

Thinking of a future with high probability, the black granules deep in my chest melted with a fizz. I was convinced that the AA batteries would drive the future.

—However, my future was not there. Or rather, it welcomed me in a "different form." Miki, who was walking side-by-side with an unknown man, hid herself as if frightened when she saw me.

What is that filthy shadow?
Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. FILTHY.

But, I finally understood.
At that moment, a sound echoed deep in my chest, confirming that I had indeed escaped from the obsessive dependence and the black world that had held me captive for so long.

Before I knew it, the girl in my pocket grew warm and breathed with a shudder.
Oh, so that's where you were hiding.

Hey, isn't that right, Mi/ki-chan?

Pop—finally, Miki-chan, who had accepted my love, replied like a machine. Her usual dry voice rang out lovingly. You shy thing, you.

Even though it was the rainy season, the sky was piercingly blue. It looked almost black.

Where did the world go wrong? Spot the difference.

#ShortStory #Deficiency #AI #UnrequitedLove #Misinterpretation #Pathology #DarkWorld #WatakusasuStyle #PolarBearLiteratureClub #Carbonated #AA #WindBlownLiteratureClub #JuneAuditoryHallucinations #UnrequitedLoveLiteratureClub #SpotTheDifference

Saturday (Mirror image of this story)