[#CreativeAward2026/#RomanceNovelCategory] Entry: "Thin Ice - Glass Boundary Line"

Synopsis

Masaki (I), who is highly sensitive and easily syncs with the emotions of others, receives a desperate call at 2:00 AM from an acquaintance named Sho, who says he is "unbearably lonely." Having a hellish past where she mistook "compassion" for "love" and had her mind and body worn down by an alcoholic partner (Kazuya), Masaki struggles intensely between an instinctive urge to save Sho and a "steel" boundary line she has built to protect herself. While Masaki offers a plan for self-reliance, Sho deflects everything with a wall of rejection. What he was seeking was not a solution, but a "gratuitous salvation" where I would offer up all of my own emotions.

Projecting my former self onto him and feeling a bottomless terror, I finally tell him, "I cannot save you," and cast off the hypocritical mask of a savior. It was a cruel yet sincere love called "severance," necessary to face each other as equals. Guided by the cold, clear light of my stoic friend Jun, and having overcome the harrowing memories, the three of us reunite while maintaining a clumsy distance. A psychological drama depicting the rebirth of souls who respect the individual loneliness that can never be merged.
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Character Introduction

﹢◊*ﾟMasaki (I): Highly sensitive and perceives the emotions of others as colors and textures. Having experienced a mutual downfall in the past while trying to save an alcoholic partner, she has acquired a "steel sense of autonomy" to protect herself. Her image color is "Byakugun" (pale blue/white).

﹢◊*ﾟJun: Masaki's friend. A former aspiring painter. Because of his many talents, he was worn down by the expectations of those around him and has a past where he once threw everything away. He governs himself with cold rationality and is like a "mirror" to Masaki. His image color is "Cobalt Blue".

﹢◊*ﾟSho: Jun's former colleague. He became mentally ill due to power harassment and is currently trembling in loneliness on the fringes of society. He has a dependent nature that unconsciously seeks the resources of others, but at his core lies a pure fragility. His image color is "Usukihada" (pale yellow).

﹢◊*ﾟKazuya: Masaki's former partner. An alcoholic. He is the symbol of Masaki's past trauma and the person who caused her to form her current "partition." His image color is "Tetsu-onando" (dark iron-blue).

﹢◊*ﾟSato: Jun's former partner. Met Jun during a time when he was trying to let his talent bloom; she let him drown in a fantastical, pale, and fragile love, continuing to spoil him under the guise of devotion until he was ruined. She is the root cause of why Jun now places such a pathological emphasis on his "sanctuary." Her image color is "Nureba-iro" (glossy black).

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Chapter 1: Resonating Solitude — Steel Autonomy and Blue Sparks

Jun was a large, dazzling, and shimmering "mirror" to me. The gaze he turned toward me held a quiet trust and a certain faint "love" for someone who resonated with him in the depths of his soul, transcending mere friendship.

Jun and I met several years ago under a cloudy sky that looked like it was about to rain. At the time, I was on my way to a work presentation when I instinctively rushed to help a child who had fallen on the road. Without caring that my suit was getting dirty, I comforted the crying child—Arashi-kun—and handed him over to the guardian who was watching from afar.

After seeing Arashi-kun off, my stockings were torn, I had sprained my ankle, and my suit was covered in dust and tattered. Even though I had an important presentation coming up, I didn't care in the slightest about my appearance. At that time, I was working day and night to support my life with Kazuya, who was drowning in alcohol, and I only kept my appearance to a minimum; I didn't have a single millimeter of thought, mentally or financially, to try to look nice.

Jun, who happened to be passing by and had seen the whole thing, called out to me. "...You look like you're about to disappear." He called out to a nearby shop, jogged to a convenience store, and bought me stockings. He arranged a place for me to change and helped me treat my wounds. When I turned back, he continued mercilessly. "You wear yourself out too much for others; you have no color of your own left anywhere." Those words, from a total stranger, were more piercing and sharp than any comfort. He had instantly seen through the "emptiness" inside me that had been sucked dry by Kazuya.

That evening, for no reason at all, I strangely found my feet heading toward that park. And there, Jun was there too. As if he had been waiting for me...

We talked about many things there. "...How can I get my color back?" I asked, squeezing the words out while enduring the pain in my sprained ankle. He answered quietly, as if overlapping his own past with mine. "First, draw a line between yourself and others. It can be a steel cage or a glass wall. Unless you draw a boundary line to protect yourself, you will end up as a background for someone else for the rest of your life." He worried about me in a calm, low voice. From that day, when we hit it off surprisingly well, Jun became like a "mirror" to me. He, too, was spending the most painful period of his life, just before he broke his paintbrush. We were barely holding on in this world, not by licking each other's wounds, but by respecting each other's loneliness.

It was not something with the heat of skin touching skin, but a sharpened reverence based on a silent contract not to erode each other's loneliness. He trusted me because he knew that I, like him, was a person who lived by taming a beast-like sensitivity inside myself and locking it in a cage called "autonomy." He saw his own reflection in that "steel pride" of mine, where I would never sell myself short even while being on the verge of being swallowed by the emotions of others.

Jun was a big, big "mirror" to me.

I did not hear in detail from his own mouth about his harrowing past, where he once drowned in women and alcohol and broke the paintbrush into which he had poured all his passion. But I could "see" it. Even the sound of dry paint peeling off, which clung to the back of his silence, and the sensation of the transparent liquid his trembling fingertips craved, as if I had been watching from nearby.

Jun is a man who has stripped away all waste to the extreme, a man who is in no way inferior as a human being. The words he chooses always strike at the essence in the shortest distance, and his gaze holds a coldness that seems to peel away the affectations of others. However, I knew that this thorough rationality was not meant to hurt others, but was a desperate defensive measure to maintain the fragile vessel that was himself.

The hard silence he occasionally shows, like biting into grains of ice. It was the very image of him desperately putting a lid on the fierce poison called "past passion" that swirled inside him. For him, logical arguments are a lifeline to keep himself together. He always has a somewhat lonely back.

My sensitivity has been a little distorted since I was a child. When I come into contact with the strong emotions of others, they flow into my mind as concrete colors and textures. It is not the warm thing called empathy. It was a violent "vision," as if being forcibly eroded by the muddy stream of someone else's life.

For example, someone's anger becomes a stinging crimson splash, and sadness becomes a heavy, damp, ultramarine fog that blocks my vision. This ability is by no means a salvation for me. It is a resonance that is too dangerous, to the point where I could "misidentify" someone else's pain as my own memory. Once that boundary runs wild, even my own outline melts like mud and is scraped away.

That is precisely why, the moment I touched the despair that had settled like "dregs" in the depths of Jun's eyes, I had no choice but to reflexively build a solid breakwater. The air he wore was as cold and clear as a winter constellation wandering in the darkness of space, and at the same time, it contained a sharp rejection that would freeze my fingertips if I touched it.

He did not introduce Sho to me out of cheap sympathy. It was because he saw in Sho the remnants of the "weakness" that they themselves had once desperately discarded and buried in the darkness. And above all, by throwing me, a "mirror," at Sho, he wanted to breathe new life into their stagnant relationship and explore the possibility that the three of us could be loosely connected while still holding onto our respective loneliness. "Masaki, you understand, don't you?"

Jun's gaze sharply traces my breakwater. In the depths of his eyes, there was an absolute affirmation of me as a person, and a silent trust, like a comrade-in-arms who had seen the same hell and was entrusting his back to me. He had foreseen that he alone would be dragged down by Sho's weight. That is why he tried to expand their closed dependency into a solidarity of three "planes" by interposing me, a person with a strong sense of autonomy. His voice spread quiet ripples, like a pebble thrown into a calm water surface. "The darkness this guy is carrying is that quagmire we were once about to be swallowed by. If left alone, it will suck in all the surrounding light and rot everything."

Jun's words were not an explanation, but a clear warning. I understand; everything he wants to say and convey flows into my brain as if I could touch it.

Instead of talking eloquently about his past, he used his entire demeanor to force upon me a harsh etiquette called "autonomy." His back, as he gave up on painting and wore down his heart at the customer service site, yet still tried to rebuild himself from "zero." There resides a steel-like stoicism that allows for no indulgence.

I can see it. Behind him, the cobalt blue paint he once loved now wraps him in armor of cold, clear reason. That blue spark, while rejecting those who approach, guides me like the only light showing the way in the darkness.

That severity felt like a more sincere salvation to me now than any sweet words of comfort. We were inhabitants of a glass castle who had exchanged a silent contract not to erode each other's loneliness.

Chapter 2: Memories of the Muddy Stream -- Shared Despair and the Shadow of Atonement

Jun's introduction of Sho to me was not mere coincidence. There was a heavy, damp history that they had walked before we even met. Jun is not a man who talks eloquently about his past. However, every time I touch the fragmentary words he let slip at a bar late at night, the path they walked overflows in my mind with vivid colors.

Overtaking the facts Jun tells, my sensitivity builds scenery on its own. The smell of iron rust drifting in the atelier. The sound of paint peeling off the canvas. It was a "vision" that went beyond empathy, as if being eroded by the muddy stream of someone else's life.

They say their meeting dates back to the campus of an art university. "Back then, there were too many colors, and I couldn't see anything." The moment Jun muttered that with self-deprecation, my vision distorted. His loneliness, as he turned his back to escape the pain of drawing while being burned by a sensitivity that was too sharp. It brushes my skin like a cold wind.

In contrast, Sho was a man who went to art school "just because" and graduated without making waves. The two reunited at a company after graduation. However, that scene quickly dyes into a suffocating swamp due to the appearance of a power-harassing boss. Day after day, the boss attacks them persistently. Jun and Sho were an extremely excellent duo who complemented each other with what the other lacked to get the job done. The boss, who felt annoyed by such close-knit juniors, focused on Sho, who was relatively quiet and easy to confront, and picked a quarrel. "Please stop. His work is logical."

When Jun protected Sho, the boss's attack shifted its target to Jun. Jun was too skillful and could perfectly handle even Sho's share of the work. That gave birth to Sho's dependency and at the same time invited the boss's jealousy.

In the end, Sho became mentally ill and left, and Jun was also planted with an unreasonable sense of guilt that "Sho broke because you did something unnecessary," and he collapsed from within.

I felt like I could see the afterimage of a broken brush behind Jun. It entwines around my vision like cold chains. The moment the vision cleared, a violent dizziness attacked me.

Every time I relive the despair of another human being, my own outline is scraped away, becoming thinner. When Jun introduced Sho to me, what resided in the depths of his eyes must have been atonement for a friend he couldn't save.

Jun is now rebuilding himself from a negative point, driving in a stake called cold-hearted self-control. That "coldness" is his own way of praying so that he will never break himself or others again. He feared that he and Sho alone would eventually be swallowed by the guilt of the past once more. That is why, by mixing in a strange light like me, he was trying to maintain a new balance for the three of us—one that was neither salvation nor dependency.

Buffeted by the torrent of their past, my spirit was severely worn down. The fear that the boundary between myself and others was becoming blurred. It was then that this exhaustion reached its peak.

Chapter 3: Midnight Boundary — The Ripples of Eroding Loneliness

2:12 AM. As if pulled back to the present, my smartphone vibrates. In the darkness, the light of the screen stabs my retinas. "Sho." The moment I saw those two characters, the pit of my stomach turned cold and tightened. Memories of that ringtone, which rang out at the same time repeatedly during the hellish days I once spent with Kazuya, come flooding back.

I paused for a moment. Deep in my chest, I felt tiny grains of pale yellow light dancing violently like the remnants of a dying star. My sensitivity always blurs the boundary between myself and the world. When I touch someone's heart, it goes beyond mere empathy, becoming a beautiful yet violent erosion that dominates me, as if cold lapis lazuli petals were falling directly inside my body.

The boundary line that protects me is a "glass membrane," shining brightly under the flaxen moonlight, far too thin and far too precarious. If you touch it, you get the illusion that warm body temperatures are melting together, but in reality, if you step inside, it becomes sharp shards that carve into each other's souls until they are beyond repair.

Just before my finger touched the screen, my heart pounded violently. Can I peer into his darkness while maintaining this membrane? Even if I ignored it, his loneliness would surely seep through the gaps in my consciousness time and time again, like the night mist.

Inside me, the "muddy iron-colored" tears shed by the Kazuya of the past and the "pale yellow" loneliness worn by the current Sho are eerily trying to mix. My fingertips freeze at the fear of that turbidity. In the inescapable silence, I finally slid the call button as if giving up on fate. "Hello." My voice falls into the silence of the night. On the other side of the receiver, a damp breath. "Masaki-san... I'm lonely." My heart leaps. Sho's voice awakens the reverberations of "that man" who had sunk to the bottom of my memory. I reflexively rubbed my arm.

Sho's voice was trembling. Low and raspy, as if the darkness itself were quietly whispering wisdom. It is so fragile. He unconsciously senses what the other person expects of him and can act out the "weakness" that meets those expectations. That overly sharp insight might have been his only survival strategy, having once suffered mental illness from unreasonable conflicts at work and now living in a place slightly removed from the light of society.

Alone in my futon, even the sound of my own breathing felt like it was coming from far beyond a dream; he was now quietly, yet surely, entrusting that kind of loneliness to me. I slowly raised my upper body from the bed. The room's air conditioner was off, and the blue-gray night air of early spring gently stroked my skin. Through the gap in the curtains, the orange light of a distant streetlamp shone in gently, like melted star fragments. I felt as if I had brought the stagnant air along with me.

"Masaki-san. You know... lately, at night, my chest feels tight... I can't breathe. I haven't talked to anyone, and I feel like I'm not needed by anyone, and I feel like I'm going crazy... But even as I call you like this, Masaki-san, part of me knows that I'm just stealing someone else's resources. I know it, but I can't stop. This contradiction is what corners me the most."

His words spill out in fragments. Yet, his voice was mixed with a somewhat wise resignation and a relaxed gentleness. A fragility that he cannot resist, even while coldly aware of his own dependency. It was as if a wise man who had traveled a long journey was talking to his own shadow in a quiet forest. As I listened quietly, I began to line up the tiny pale yellow grains of light of a constellation in my head. Without being swept away by emotions, I first carefully mapped out the facts, like a dream map. The old me would have already had crimson petals of emotion dancing at this stage, gently melting into the other person's darkness. "Sho-san, why don't we try moving little by little? For example, starting with work you can do at home..." I looked out the window while holding my smartphone to my ear. In the distance, a traffic light was blinking rhythmically. Just that, an inorganic night scene. I began to line up my suggestions one by one, as concretely as possible, but as if sowing seeds of magic.

My tone was gentle, but I kept a core of firmness. Deep in my chest, a warm light was quietly lit, wanting to ease Sho's loneliness even a little. I carefully lined up the "spider threads" he should be able to grab, one by one, as if in prayer. "For example, a side job like data entry that you can do at home. You're good at writing, Sho-san, so I think writing jobs would suit you too. If you're afraid to go outside, you could start with posting flyers a few times a week. If you move your body, the fog in your head should clear up a little. ...Or, maybe keeping a pet like you mentioned before, or growing herbs on your balcony. I think there are nights when you can be saved by touching a small life."

However, before I could finish my words, Sho wrapped them all in a damp mist of rejection.

" ...It's impossible. When I look at a screen, the insults from that workplace come raining down. If I go outside, I feel like even the light of the streetlamps exposes my worthlessness. Raising a life? I can't even handle myself, I don't have that privilege." It was as if he hadn't been looking for a single drop of a solution from the very beginning.

I knew it. What he wanted wasn't my wisdom or help toward independence. What he craved was my time, my emotions, and a bottomless salvation called my "unconditional love."

Suddenly, the memory of that winter I spent with Kazuya flashes back. The single 100-yen coin left in my wallet. The feeling of those miserable fingertips, clutching it, agonizing over whether to prioritize his drinking money over my own hunger.

Sho's words of rejection overlap with Kazuya's old whining, "It's impossible, I only have this (alcohol)," coldly crushing my heart.

" ...Aren't you lonely, Masaki-san? How can you be so calm? You seem to have tamed your loneliness. Are you escaping the pain of being eroded by others by protecting your own boundaries, or are you convinced that it's the only form of sincerity... I wonder which it is." Sho's voice suddenly struck at my core. "...You seem to have tamed your loneliness." Those words gouge at an old wound.

The silence of a pitch-black room where the electricity had been cut off returns to my mind. Back then, I was sinking into the deep sea of loneliness, merely watching my own silhouette dissolve and vanish.

That "survival-instinct fear" is now trying to erode me once again through Sho's sweet, damp voice. His question was a thorn coated in honey, testing the boundaries of my being.

I gripped my smartphone so hard my knuckles turned white. Only the sensation of cold glass and metal barely kept me tethered to the "present."

My world is always overflowing with excessive color. The emotions of others burn into my retinas without my permission, grating against my nerves. That is precisely why I have imposed the cold yet quiet color of "Hakugun" (pale blue) upon myself, using a steel-willed autonomy to dam that torrent. Yet, Sho's words easily cross that barrier.

Outside the window, an ambulance siren sounded in the distance like a torn scream for just a moment, before being swallowed by the wet-crow-colored night.

Chapter 4: Independence in the Mirror -- Jun, the Cold Light

I try winding the clock hands back to the autumn of a year ago.

Now, the sound of Sho's damp breathing over the receiver awakens the memory of the moment I first met him in the fog that day. I first met Sho at the end of autumn, on a deep indigo night when the entire city was wrapped in a pale mist. The memory of that day still dances deep within my chest, like grains of light from beads spilled on the floor. It was such a mysterious encounter, as if fragments of a pale yellow-hued starry sky had fallen softly onto the ground of reality. I received a message from our mutual friend, Jun, which was rare for him: "There's someone I'm a bit curious about, do you want to meet him?" Jun is a realist who always coldly dismisses connecting people as "wasted energy." Of course, it's a different story when it comes to close friends or buddies. Rather, Jun is skilled at exchanging useful information within the community he has defined, and he possessed an intellectual greed, the kind that would make him smile quietly and say, "If you don't know something, you can just fill it in later." In that regard, we are exactly the same, and I can strongly empathize with him.

The friends I once spent all night talking about dreams with have now all settled into symbols like "parent" or "spouse" on the other side of the screen, filling their timelines with reports of weekend parks or children's lessons. Friends with whom common topics slip through my fingers like sand, drifting apart. In this age group where the light of those walking the "correct path of life" is too dazzling, Jun's cold-blooded rationality was my only honest refuge. Thoroughly efficient, strictly governing the waves of emotion with an iron boundary. This is the very reason he is who he is, and it is something I could never imitate. Feeling that there must be some special "thread of light" tangled up for him to go out of his way to specify and introduce me, I felt my heart race just a little, steadied my breath, and headed to the meeting place. A quiet cafe, a little ways from the station. The orange light of the streetlamps reflected on the window glass as if it had melted, and the inside of the shop was lit softly, like the bottom of a dream lake. Jun was sitting with his back straight, wearing his usual vibrant ultramarine hoodie and a coat of the same color. Next to him was a man with a slightly hunched posture. That was Sho. "Hey, Masaki. It's been a while. This guy is Sho. I was taken care of by him a bit at my old workplace. Now... well, various things have happened." Jun's voice rang out flatly, carrying the weight of reality. In his eyes, which held a bitter smile, irritation, slight sympathy, and something like a sense of responsibility were mixed. Jun is never soft. Even when we argue through the night, he reads many moves ahead like a shogi piece, coldly striking at the essence. His mind works so fast that even I sometimes couldn't keep up, as if I had just woken from a dream. Jun was terrifyingly versatile. Not just in painting, but in studies, sports, and the know-how of new jobs, he would lightly make them his own in a short period, "tap-tap-tap," as if dry sand were absorbing water. He and I resonated deeply in our stance toward work.

I pride myself on having been a leader who stood tall at the site, breaking through any difficult project with optimistic energy. However, behind that, I was always fighting the "fear of being irreplaceable." If trouble occurred, I was the first to be called, I took on others' mistakes as my own responsibility, and I was driven by the obsessive-compulsive idea that "it won't end unless I do it" while sipping cold coffee alone in the office late at night. The innocent trust of those around me, saying "Masaki-san will handle it," gradually turned into a suffocating pressure, like a silk cord tightening around my neck.

Jun was the same. He said that when he worked at a design firm, because of his overwhelming processing ability, he was pushed into doing adjustments unrelated to his actual duties and cleaning up after others. "Jun, I can only ask you for this too"—those words eroded his creativity and consumed him as nothing more than a "convenient gear."

Jun's stoicism and my leadership. Perhaps we shared the loneliness of being "capable people" without ever putting it into words.

However, I strongly feel that it was that innate talent that ironically drove him into loneliness. The sight of him handling everything skillfully must have looked to those around him like a "cool-headed person who grabs success without effort." But I know. Hidden beneath that veil of "dexterity" is a passive kindness, more sensitive than anyone else's, and a desire to meet the expectations of others more than anyone else. "Jun will be fine," "If I leave it to him, there's no mistake."

—The way such irresponsible trust gradually chipped away at his essence overlapped painfully with my own image, as I once tried to swallow all the pressure named "expectation" at my workplace. The more I tried to meet expectations, the more I was forced to suppress my own emotions and play the part of the perfect "capable person." Unrewarded effort and loneliness that no one understands. No matter how many results I produced, human relationships didn't deepen; instead, they invited jealousy and excessive dependence, gradually becoming distorted.

“...In the end, we were just continuing to pay back the debt called 'expectation' with interest,” Jun once muttered self-deprecatingly. Those words touched the deepest scar on my chest, coldly yet gently.

Watching him, who was like a "mirror," I could see that the "fear of breaking down by giving too much of myself" that I had once tasted was also quietly, yet surely, accumulating like sediment within him. The coldness with which he tried to push Sho away looked to me like a heartbreakingly desperate defense mechanism to keep from wearing himself out any further.

Jun himself had once dedicated all his passion to his paintbrush. Since he was a child, he had been fascinated by the transparent layering of watercolors, and he excelled at landscape paintings where particles of light seemed to melt together, and portraits that captured the wavering of a person's soul.

Why did he, who had advanced to art school and was expected to have a bright future, sever that path? There, the existence of a woman named Sato played a part.

Sato loved Jun's talent more than anyone, and at the same time, eroded it more deeply than anyone. She devotedly supported every aspect of his life so that Jun could concentrate solely on painting. However, that "love" gradually transformed into a sweet poison that robbed Jun of his independence and sense of reality. Sato pampered Jun, isolated him from society, and made him so dependent that he couldn't even hold a brush without her. "You only need to think about painting." Those words became a curse, and Jun's sensibility was painted over by the colors of Sato's narrow world. Even the agony of creation was dissolved into Sato's devotion, and the sharp vitality gradually faded from his paintings.

One day, Jun was trapped in a cage called Sato's love, and he could no longer endure the fear of his individual self vanishing. He rejected Sato and dropped out of art school as if fleeing. Having thrown everything away, he stood on the edge of despair, forced to give up his dreams amidst financial anxiety.

Driven by the pure motive of "liking to interact with people," he chose a career in customer service next. With his natural quick-wittedness and meticulous attention to detail, he was initially highly valued by those around him. However, his overly sensitive nature caused him to take every unreasonable demand from customers and the organization head-on, gradually eroding his spirit. Because he was able to handle things so skillfully, no one realized he was at his limit.

Having lost his escape route, he eventually began to drown in alcohol, abandoning his job and even the act of drawing, which had been his only salvation.

Now, he was in the process of crawling up from that rock bottom, resetting his former self to "zero," and rebuilding himself from a negative starting point.

He never showed his intense sensitivity, sealing it away with iron-like self-control. He placed a pathological emphasis on "boundaries" because he knew to the marrow of his bones, through his days with Tomo, just how easily surrendering oneself to another could cause one's own humanity to collapse. For him, drawing lines was not an act of coldness, but a blood-spitting prayer to keep his own soul anchored. He was like me, sensitive to the emotions of others, yet he firmly, albeit realistically, maintained boundaries to avoid "over-identifying."

When Sho saw my face, he smiled softly, yet with a touch of sadness. That smile was as fragile as dandelion fluff swaying in the wind, and somehow seemed helpless. "Nice to meet you, Masaki-san. I'm Sho. I've heard about you from Jun. ...Sorry, this is so sudden." His voice was low and damp, as if the wet-crow-colored mist itself were quietly whispering wisdom.

"I understand now why Jun said you were 'the most reliable mirror with a heart of steel.' Your eyes hold the quiet pride of someone who disciplines themselves." I gasped for a moment at his insight, which had verbalized my essence upon our first meeting. In that instant, a small petal of light danced deep within my chest. Sho did not possess the sharp strength that Jun or I had. He wore a fragile kindness that made one feel they couldn't just leave him alone; his eyes were gentle, and he looked a bit childlike when he smiled. When Jun said with a wry smile, 'This guy has a bit of a dangerous side,' perhaps I had already caught a glimpse of the 'weakness' within Sho that I had once desperately tried to cut away and bury in the darkness. Since then, opportunities to gather as a trio including Jun increased, and we deepened our interactions through group chats and meals.

However, there came a time when Jun had to step away for an unavoidable errand, leaving me and Sho to share time alone. Sho, whose nature was such that he couldn't resolve his anxiety unless he remained connected to someone, used that void to reveal his personal inner thoughts to me for the first time.

Upon learning that the two of us had connected directly, Jun seemed to shift his thinking to accept a relationship without him, believing, "If it's these two, they'll be fine even if I don't intervene."

From then on, Sho gradually began to contact me individually. At first, it was light complaints or airy, dream-like small talk such as "How have you been lately?" But as the night deepened, his words became damp, and a sticky loneliness and desire for affection began to spill out warmly. He began to entrust his fragile, soft, true feelings—the kind he would never show Jun—to me alone, little by little, and with certainty. And now—in this phone call past 2:30 AM, that accumulation was surfacing all at once like pale yellow-colored stars in the rain. "...Aren't you lonely, Masaki-san? Are you just pretending to be okay?" Sho's question pierced deep into my chest. My hand holding the smartphone became damp with sweat. The air in the room felt like a damp pressure, threatening to crush me.

If it had been Jun here, he would have struck back without hesitation with cold, logical arguments, sharp as a knife. "Being swayed by loneliness is proof that you aren't taking responsibility for your own life. It's too much to ask for salvation from others when you can't fulfill yourself." Jun's correctness was like the light of reality, mercilessly and quietly silencing the other person. But I couldn't do that. Because beyond Sho's trembling voice, I could see my former self, fragile and faintly transparent. The days of hell when I was with my former partner Kazuya, who was an alcoholic, telling me "I'm the only one for you," and I gave him everything, sinking into the bottomless swamp of codependency. Mistaking compassion for love, whittling myself away until both of us were covered in wounds. I desperately swallowed the true feeling of "I want to be pampered by someone" that was on the tip of my tongue. If I showed weakness here, the boundary would collapse all at once. A swamp-like codependency would begin, and we would both just fall to the bottom of a dream. I know that from personal experience. "...It's not that I'm not lonely," I answered quietly, but with my feet still planted on the ground of reality. "But I don't think it's a reality that someone will pour unconditional love on you just because you wait. If you want unconditional love, I think you have to start by unconditionally cherishing someone or something yourself." Sho let out a deep, desperate sigh. That sigh settled in my chest like a damp, heavy mist. "I don't have the capacity for that right now... I really am scared of everything, and I can't move..." "I see. That's why I've stopped expecting anything from humans now. Someday, I want to live with a cat in a quiet place. I want to live with a creature that has no words, just sharing body heat. I think that is my only escape and hope right now." After a moment of silence, Sho let out a dry laugh that sounded like he was mocking himself. That laugh pierced me like a sharp thorn. "A cat, huh... that sounds nice. Someone like me has no confidence, no job, no money, nothing. I guess someone like that doesn't have the qualifications to keep a cat or meet anyone. Everyone is only attracted to sparkling people with confidence." He listed his own worthlessness, trying to gently draw out sweet, all-affirming words from me like "That's not true" or "You have plenty of value." This was a fragile, soft trap set for me as a savior. "Sho-san, there are hundreds of millions of people in the world. Not everyone operates on the same values. Possibilities are equal for everyone." I intentionally replied with a kindness that felt like pushing him away. It was my own realistic response to his words from before, "I hate people who don't express their feelings themselves and just wait for a confession." He was currently waiting with his mouth open for a "confession" in the form of salvation from someone. On the other end of the phone, Sho's breathing became ragged. I felt my own heartbeat sounding strangely loud, yet dreamily gentle, and I felt as if I were gently stroking the thin glass boundary with my finger. This night, what I was trying to protect was not just distance, but myself standing on thin ice. A petal of light continued to dance quietly deep in my chest.

Chapter 5: The Sincerity of Severance — My Prayer of "Loving No One"

On the other end of the phone, Sho's breathing became disordered. Through the veil of night, that trembling was transmitted as if it were piercing me. 2:40 AM. The room was submerged in complete darkness. At the bottom of a dream, a quiet, pale-blue lake. Only the pale light of the smartphone illuminated my face dimly. Tears streaming down my cheeks. Trembling hands. My chest hurts. I can't breathe. I rested my elbows on my knees and pressed my cold fingertips to my forehead. I tried desperately to keep my heart anchored. My heart jumped with a thud. I felt as if the irregular heartbeat was shaking the entire room.

"Sho-san... right now, there is no one I love. I don't want to love anyone." The back of my throat burned. My vision blurred. Even so, I didn't look away. Leaving things ambiguous is far crueler. It would drag both of us into an even deeper darkness. I knew that painfully well. These words were a cold yet gentle blade for me to protect my boundaries. Sho gasped on the other end of the phone. Silence. A few seconds of heavy, fragile silence fell slowly like mist into the pitch-black night. In that silence, I could clearly feel his heart being wounded and collapsing with a sound. Surprise, sadness, anger, rejection, the pain of being betrayed... —various emotions were swirling and mixing in the night mist. "...Eh?" Sho's voice was small, raspy, and strongly mixed with the sound of disbelief. His voice, which was always gentle, relaxed, and wisely enveloping, was now clearly trembling and on the verge of crumbling. That trembling gouged my chest even deeper, amplifying my guilt many times over. Regret, as if I had accidentally stepped on a precious petal of light, washed over me like waves again and again. I closed my eyes tightly and continued in a voice as soft as possible, but clearly. Putting strength into my stomach so my voice wouldn't tremble, I chose my words with the caution of dropping a stone onto the surface of a pale-blue lake. "I don't have the qualifications to be anyone's savior. Listening, being by your side—that's all I can do. But I don't think that's enough to fill all of your loneliness... I'm sorry for saying it so clearly. But if we stay ambiguous any longer, it will only make both of us suffer." Silence. Sho's breathing stopped on the other end of the receiver. Eventually, a heavy, damp sigh escaped. It was the sound of the threads of expectation snapping one by one. I felt it painfully realistically through the phone, and my chest felt like it was going to burst. My fingertips turned cold, and my hand holding the smartphone became sweaty. "...I see." Sho's voice was soft and fluffy, but clearly drained of strength. "I guess I... might have been expecting too much. I thought maybe, if it were you, Masaki-san, you would accept all of me... I was lonely, the night was scary, and I just wanted to rely on you, Masaki-san..." The moment I heard that confession, a hot tear streamed down my cheek. It was warm, frustrating, apologetic, and the depths of my chest ached intensely. I hurriedly wiped away my tears and, while choking back my voice, answered sincerely. "I'm sorry... I'm really sorry, Sho-san. You are kind, smart, and a very good person. Even just the resonance of your voice is relaxed, and it has a gentleness that softly wraps around someone's pain. But I have repeated the same thing in the past, and I deeply hurt both the other person and myself."

Once, there was a man who clung to me in the same way, saying, "You are my only light." I tried to become that light and burned myself out. My voice began to tremble little by little. I took a deep breath so my weakness wouldn't be detected and continued. "That's why I don't want to make the same mistake twice. I want to properly protect my boundaries, the thin glass. I think a relationship where we respect each other's loneliness at a distance where we can touch gently is the most sincerity I can offer. I don't want a love that melts completely together; I want to be a quiet light that just gently snuggles up to you..."

Sho said nothing for a while, just letting out small sobs. That crying voice was not so much anger as it was a damp, ink-colored resonance mixed with deep sadness and resignation. Eventually, he said in a raspy, yet somehow wise and calm voice, "...I understand. I accept your feelings properly. I was the one relying too much on you, Masaki-san... It's pathetic at my age. Everyone around me is standing on their own two feet, becoming the side that protects someone else. I was lonely, and I just wanted all of you, Masaki-san. I didn't want to hurt you, but instead, I ended up being a burden... I'm sorry..." When I heard those words, my chest warmed up all at once, and at the same time, it hurt intensely. Sho's kindness came across as fragile, yet sincere. Even though he himself was deeply wounded, he didn't blame me and tried to blame himself. That pure, smooth kindness made me suffer even more, yet also made me feel affection for him. "Sho-san... thank you. I didn't want to hurt you, but I wanted to tell you honestly. You can talk to me whenever you want from now on. But please, don't hold the expectation of 'I want you to carry everything' or 'Give me all of you' anymore. I think that is the most sincere and kind thing I can do for you right now." I heard Sho's voice on the other end of the phone replying with a small "Yeah..." That voice was a complex mix of sadness, a slight sense of relief, and lingering loneliness. While feeling all of that, I continued to shed tears quietly. My chest hurts. I'm sorry. But at the same time, there was a quiet sense of relief, as if a heavy veil had become a little lighter. As the conversation neared its end, Sho said in a voice that was fading away, yet gentle. "Masaki-san... goodnight. See you. Thank you." The complex emotions contained in that "thank you"—gratitude, loneliness, pain, and acceptance—remained deep and warm in my heart.

However, as if to erase that lingering feeling, another voice overlapped in my mind. "...Thank you, Masaki. You're the only one who won't abandon me." Kazuya's sweet voice, melted and muddy with alcohol. If Sho's "thank you" was the quiet night dew, Kazuya's was the sound of a quagmire that entangles everything and tries to sink together. Beyond Sho's trembling sigh, I could see Kazuya's despair, like someone crawling on a damp tatami mat.

It's similar. It's far too similar. Just behind the compassion of wanting to save Sho, the memory of that hell continued to sound an alarm that shook my survival instinct violently. The moment I hung up the phone, I pressed the smartphone tightly against my chest and lay face down on the bed. I couldn't stop crying. The guilt of hurting Sho, the relief of protecting myself, the fear of loving, the loneliness of drawing boundaries, the throbbing of past wounds... Various emotions swirled violently in my chest like fragments of light, scattering sharply. I buried my face in the pillow and whispered quietly, but clearly. "I'm sorry, Sho-san. I don't want to be a person who fills someone else's hole anymore. I want to live as myself... that's all."

This night, I reaffirmed my thin glass boundary painfully clearly. It might feel cold. But I decided to quietly believe, amidst my tears, that this was the true kindness and form of love I could offer Sho right now. The veil of night was still thick, and dawn was far away. In that darkness, I gently held my heart's coral-orange light as if to protect it.

Chapter 6: The Quagmire of Codependency — Until the Hell of Memory Turns into Light

The silence after hanging up the phone was heavier than I expected, covering my entire room like a cold lump of iron. By the time it was past 3:00 AM, the studio apartment was submerged in complete darkness. The smartphone screen had already turned cold and dark, and only the faint afterglow remained dimly on my fingertips. I sat on the edge of the bed, unable to move for a long time. Deep in my chest, I felt fragments of light quietly crumbling away. The former me had continued to bathe myself in a hypocritical light borrowed under the name of "compassion." Believing it to be true love, I gave everything, dissolved my own boundaries, and sank into the darkness of the other person. The result of that created this quiet obsession with the thin glass boundary I have now. Memories overflowed like a broken dam, beginning to gouge my heart mercilessly. —I was truly poor back then. Not having money means being robbed of choices. The humiliation of returning a pack of eggs from the basket while being bathed in the cold stares of customers waiting behind me when I made a calculation error and was ten yen short at the supermarket register. On the night road after leaving the store, my own fingertips trembling under the streetlights felt more miserable and filthy than anything else.

　My clothes were almost entirely hand-me-downs, and aside from those, I wore dirty clothes I found in the 300-yen corner of thrift stores, washing them over and over, mending them, and wearing them for years. My winter coat had holes in it, and the wind would pierce my body directly. In the summer, I was drenched in sweat in just a T-shirt, and in the winter, I had no choice but to endure while shivering.

　It was a daily occurrence for the electricity to be cut off because I couldn't pay the bill, for the room lights to go out, for the refrigerator to stop, and for the gas to be shut off. I would distract myself from hunger with tap water, and every time I washed my face with the ice-cold water from the faucet in winter, I felt as if I could hear the sound of my own dignity wearing away.

　The soles of my shoes were worn thin, and on rainy days, water would soak through until my feet were so cold they lost all sensation. That coldness was the exact temperature of my heart.

　Everything was for that person. 　

　Kazuya, my former partner who was an alcoholic—he was a person who couldn't express true kindness or say the words "I love you" unless he was drinking.

　Every day, when he returned from work, he would empty several cans of beer, and as the alcohol took effect, his voice would grow louder and he would cling to me. "I can't live without you," "You are my only light," "Everyone else betrays me. Only you." 　Those words flowed into my ears like sweet honey, and at the same time, they became chains that robbed me of my freedom. I thought I was saving Kazuya, but in reality, I was addicted to the role of "the person saving him." The sound of Kazuya's footsteps as he ran to buy alcohol, the dry sound of empty cans rolling on the floor, and the fake, tearful voice echoing in the middle of the night saying, "I'm sorry, I won't do it again." All of those were the background music of my daily life.

　I believed that was "proof of true love" and was intoxicated by the illusion of being a savior. By convincing myself, "This person has only me," I beautified my own self-sacrifice and continued to give him everything. Kazuya's dependency was nourished by my arrogant sensitivity of "wanting to save him," and it grew bloated. The more I tried to save him, the more incapacitated he became, and the more I wore away. That hell was a deadly poison created by the chemical reaction of our two "kindnesses."

I would wake up at 4:00 AM to work at a convenience store, spend my days immersed in studying for certifications, and spend my nights dealing with him, drinking with him, listening to his complaints, and comforting him while being showered with verbal abuse.
When my paycheck came in, most of it would disappear into his alcohol and cigarette money or living expenses, and it was not rare for me to get by on one meal a day.
Sometimes, I would spend a whole week with only a single 100-yen coin in my wallet the day before payday.

Feeling pathetic and frustrated, I would bury my face in my futon alone in the middle of the night, crying and whispering, "I've reached my limit," "I want to die," over and over.
"If I work hard, it will pay off," "If I love him, he will change," "If I endure, he will surely get better."
Clinging to such fantasies, I worked myself to the bone and endured.
Living itself was hell. One night, he came home heavily intoxicated.

His face was bright red, his eyes were unfocused, and he clung to me, shouting in a slurred voice, "If you weren't here today, I would have died."
The smell of alcohol was soaked into his entire body, and it made me feel nauseous. Even so, I hugged him, rubbed his back, stroked his hair, and repeated, "It's okay, I'm here."
In that moment, I chanted the spell to myself again, "If I weren't here, this person would fall apart," and accepted everything about him.
However, that was not love.
It was just a bottomless swamp called codependency.

We both sank into a sticky, pathological bond where we needed each other. He didn't change.
Rather, his dependency only deepened, and he reached a state where he couldn't do anything without me.

I changed completely.
My weight dropped, my hair fell out, my skin became rough, and I was completely haggard. It wasn't just my body; my heart was also being eroded.
My friends gradually drifted away, and even though my family told me, "You don't look well," I continued to hide my true pain.
Telling myself it was "for him" and "for love," I used myself up like a disposable item.

Even on the day I passed my certification exam, the fact that I thought, "Now I can increase his living expenses a little," before feeling any joy, seems pathetic and miserable when I look back on it now. The sweetness and sticky dependency I feel in Sho's voice. The words, "I'm lonely," "I don't know what to do."

　That overlapped terrifyingly with the curse-like clinginess that Kazuya used to repeat in the middle of the night while crushing empty cans: "I'm lonely, Masaki. I can't get through the night without you." Every time Sho's words slip into the gaps in my heart, Kazuya's "confession of love," soaked in the smell of alcohol, flashes back, and I fall into a sensation as if the blood in my entire body is freezing.

　The old me gave that curse the name "compassion" and kept whittling myself down until we both collapsed. The sensation of those miserable fingertips when I was agonizing over whether to buy his alcohol instead of my own bread with the last 100-yen coin left in my wallet. That was not love; it was a deadly poison that only filled each other's voids.

　That is precisely why I felt a terror close to a survival instinct tonight. If I reach out my hand here, that mire will open its mouth again. Rejecting Sho is not abandoning him. It is a blood-spitting "choice for survival" so that I, as a single human being, do not shatter into pieces any further. I slowly stood up and stood in front of the small mirror in the corner of the room.

Chapter 7: Taking Off the Savior's Mask -- The Despair on the Other Side of the Glass

　
Just past 2:00 AM, the vibration of my smartphone cut through the silence. The call from Sho was more intense and persistent than ever before.

"Masaki-san. I'm sorry... I called again. I'm so lonely, so lonely, I feel like I'm going to die. I wanted to hear your voice right now..."

　His voice is raspy. It has a painful, yet somehow sticky resonance that tries to bind the other person, like a sharp thorn stuck deep in his throat. I sat up in bed and stared at the dark ceiling. The depths of my chest are sounding a cold alarm. I know this sensation all too well.

"Sho-san, what's wrong?"
"I don't know. It's just that my chest hurts... I want someone to be here. Masaki-san, can I come to your house now? I want you to be by my side, always, always. I've reached my limit."

　His words reflected the figure of my former partner, Kazuya, as cruelly as a mirror. Even though it is Sho's voice coming from the receiver, in my mind, Kazuya is crying and shouting in the same way. Kazuya drowned in alcohol, entrusted everything to me, and in the end, repeated those words as a blade to take away my escape, saying, "I'll die without you." I was bound by that curse, and my heart and body were worn away.

In the end, I couldn't save him. My arrogance in trying to save him only hurt us both deeply.

"Sho-san, listen. I..."
　I choose my words carefully. My fingertips are freezing cold. 　I pushed him away, as if in prayer.
"I cannot save you."
　A moment of silence. I knew his breathing had stopped sharply.
"Eh...? What are you saying? Masaki-san, you said you would help me..."
"I cannot love anyone completely. I can't fill all of your loneliness. I will not become your 'source of dependency'."

　Sho's voice changed completely. The "wise and relaxed" resonance from before vanished, and his naked obsession bared its fangs.
"Does that mean... you're abandoning me? You're cold! After saying so many kind words, you're pushing me away now?! Masaki-san, you were just using me to get drunk on being 'a kind person', weren't you!"

On the other end of the receiver, there was a loud, sharp sound of something shattering. His ragged breathing directly polluted my eardrums.

“I’m going to die... I’m going to jump off the balcony right now, and I’ll write in my suicide note that it was your fault! Are you happy with that?! Answer me!”

That roar shattered the mask I wore, the one named "Savior," right in the center of my chest. My heart hammered against my ribs as if it would break through, and the edges of my vision flickered with white light. It felt as if the air had been ripped from my lungs, and the back of my throat burned. Kazuya’s dead face overlapped with Sho’s screaming, filling my mind until something sour rose from the pit of my stomach.

My fingertips were as cold as ice, losing all sensation, and the hand holding my smartphone felt like it would slip from the greasy sweat. My knees shook violently, and unable to stand, I collapsed to the floor. Yet, contrary to my body’s intense rejection, the core of my soul was burning more quietly than ever before.

This "severance" was the only way to respect him as an individual. Swallowing my nausea, I forced a trembling voice out of my throat. “Maybe so. My kindness was poison to you. That is why I am ending this. I will not offer up my life. I will not carry your darkness for you. This transparent ‘partition’ is the final fortress I need to survive.”

On the other end of the line, Sho let out a beast-like sob. Anger, sadness, and despair at having someone who "wouldn't do as he wanted" surged toward me in a violent torrent. “It’s impossible... I can’t do this alone! If Masaki-san isn’t here, I’ll really die! Why don’t you understand, even though I’m in so much pain!” Sho’s voice was no longer a plea, but a scream bordering on a threat. However, as I maintained my silence and continued to exist there as an unwavering "individual," he coughed violently and eventually laughed weakly. That laughter had the cold, iron-black ring of dry sand spilling away.
“...I see. In the end, I’m just an empty human being who will die if I’m not parasitizing someone. Masaki-san, you’re just like the others after all. You’re leaving me alone.” That voice, sunk to the depths of self-mockery, was colder than it had ever been.

I lay face down on the bed and buried my face in the pillow. My whole body was shaking violently. I wanted to save him. I wanted to love him. But that very impulse was the trigger that would destroy us both. Now that I had cast off the arrogant mask of the savior, what remained in my hands was a sharp, yet transparent and sincere love called "severance." How much time had passed? The darkness of the pitch-black night was slowly changing its color. With trembling fingers, I sent a message to Jun. ‘I talked to Sho tonight. A definitive conversation. ...I need your help. The three of us, as individuals, I want to face this.’
The reply came immediately.
‘Understood. You’ve made up your mind, then. Come to my place the day after tomorrow. Let’s talk about reality, where there’s no place to run.’
Even though it was a short message, for some reason, I felt like air had finally reached the depths of my lungs. I closed my eyes and quietly accepted the night I had made the most difficult and sincere choice: to "protect myself and push the other away." Perhaps out of relief, or perhaps out of the sense of loss that comes with finishing a role, hot drops spilled from my eyes, making small stains on the sheets.

After reading Jun’s reply, I put down my smartphone with trembling hands. When he said, "You’ve made up your mind," it was likely because he saw through not just that I had pushed Sho away, but that I was also trying to break away from my own past. The next day, I received a short phone call from Jun. “Masaki, sorry to call so soon after yesterday, but I have one thing to say.”

His voice was lower than usual, yet warm. “What you said to Sho is something I couldn’t do. I protected him too much, and in the end, we both sank into the mire. The boundary you drew isn’t coldness. It’s the only foothold for Sho to stand on his own two feet. Don’t blame yourself.”

At those words, the tears I had been holding back threatened to overflow. Jun understood the nature of the guilt I was carrying better than anyone. “...Thank you, Jun. I’m so glad you’re here.” “Don’t say that. I’ve been saved many times by that ‘steel autonomy’ of yours, too. We’re comrades-in-arms, reflecting each other like mirrors, aren’t we?”

Jun’s words were like a cobalt-blue light guiding me as I wandered in the darkness. My trust in him had transcended mere friendship, turning into a deep attachment between two people who had shared the same pain and vowed to be reborn together.

Chapter 8: The Dawn of Independence — Embracing a Warmth That Doesn't Touch

After the call with Masaki ended, Sho was said to have been dominated by an emptiness as if his soul had been ripped out in the darkness. According to what I heard from him later, the regret of having burned away the last light that was Masaki, and the ugly dependency that still made him want to cling to her, crawled through his brain like mud.

Holding onto the balcony railing and being blown by the cold night wind, he chewed on his own worthlessness. But at that moment, what floated into his mind was my voice—the voice that sounded like I was about to cry, yet was dignified as I said, "I cannot save you." (...It’s not that she can’t save me. She told me to ‘save myself.’) That realization pierced his thoughts like a thunderclap. Living by parasitizing someone else and devouring their life. That image seemed as hideous as a monster reflected in a mirror. If he didn’t even have the courage to die, he would at least try to move his own limbs in this mire. He looked back, a little embarrassed, saying that it was the first time in his life he had been able to think that way.

The next morning, as if Jun had foreseen it, he opened the unlocked door and walked in. “...Are you alive?” Jun said only that, then placed an old laptop and a small potted Pachira plant on the dust-covered table. “Masaki believed in you and pushed you away. If you betray that trust, I’ll be the one to end it for you right here. But if you have even a millimeter of will to resist, use this.” What Jun left behind was a list of simple data entry side jobs.

For the next few weeks, the hell for Sho changed from "loneliness" to "reality." According to what he told me later, as he tapped the keyboard with trembling fingers and repeated tasks that paid less than a few yen per character, his past trauma would resurface when he looked at the screen, and he would be overcome with nausea. However, every time that happened, he watered the Pachira plant on the balcony. He said he learned the fundamental simplicity of the act of "living" from the way the silent plant simply spread its leaves toward the sun.

The day a few hundred yen was deposited into his account for the first time as payment for his side job. He bought the cheapest bread at a convenience store and ate it while crying. It was the price of his own time, which had changed form, not someone else’s resources. He told me, as if savoring the words, that the weight of that had driven a small wedge called "self-esteem" into him.

He was gradually able to view the self that had been dependent on me objectively. He realized he hadn't loved me, but had merely been devouring the "peace of mind" I provided. The only way to erase that guilt was to continue to exist as a respectable individual outside the boundary I had tried to protect.

Two months had passed since then. The early summer breeze was soft, and from the balcony of Jun’s apartment, one could look down at the night city, which looked as if jewels had been scattered across it.

Jun had contacted me after work, saying, "Let's grab a bite." When I entered the room, the faint, sharp scent of oil paint tickled my nose. On the table, the tie Jun wore for work was discarded messily, and beside it, several abstract paintings he had recently finished were propped up. Dark blues and grays mixed, with faint lines of light running through them here and there—paintings that reflected Jun’s heart, with colors that were somehow lonely, yet resilient.

Jun called out from the kitchen and placed a cold can of beer on the table. A pleasant popping sound echoed through the quiet room. With practiced hands, he spilled edamame he had taken out of a convenience store bag onto a plate.

Sho arrived first. He held a small paper bag as if it were precious. With a shy smile, he took out a small potted houseplant and a photograph. "This... is something I sent to my parents with the first money I earned from my side job. We took the photo together at that time. They were so happy." His voice was still a little anxious, but the color of the desperate plea to be saved that used to drown him like mud was gone. He was now beginning to get a feel for his own life through a side job he did about once a week and the writing work he was gradually increasing. "Heh, that's not bad at all." Jun poured beer down his throat and let out a breath. "You've grown, Sho. Filial piety is too dazzling for me. Here, eat up. This fried chicken is cold, but the flavor is strong, so it goes well with alcohol." Jun tossed a pair of disposable chopsticks to Sho. Sho caught them in a panic and smiled faintly.

I sat on the edge of the sofa, watching their interaction with a sense of awe. The intense gaze that occasionally settled on Jun's profile. The moist eyes filled with longing that Sho turned toward me.

What filled this room was a dense and dangerous attraction that couldn't be dismissed by the simple word 'friendship.' We were strongly drawn to each other. If anyone took a step forward, this equilibrium would instantly be swallowed by a violent storm called 'love,' and we would be caught in the mire of possessiveness and jealousy.

Jun's fingertips almost touched my hand as I set down my glass, but he hesitated slightly and pulled back. In that gap of a few centimeters, I could see the passion he was suppressing and the heartbreaking self-control that wanted to avoid breaking this relationship. Sho, too, hid an unspeakable romantic affection deep in his eyes as he looked at me. But he knew that if he put it into words, the foothold of 'independence' he had finally attained would crumble.

It had been two weeks since I returned to work. Avoiding excessive conformity and conscious of the 'thin glass' I used to protect myself, I was measuring the distance between myself and society one step at a time.

After dinner, when the alcohol had started to kick in, Jun pointed to his painting. "You know, I only feel like I'm truly alive when I'm painting this. Even when I'm exhausted from being chased by numbers at work... the moment I'm mixing these colors, I don't have to meet anyone's expectations." It was a quiet voice. I felt my heart warm at the fact that Jun, who was always cold and rational, had rephrased his own fragility as a 'sanctuary.' Sho held his glass with both hands and said softly, "That night... when Masaki-san told me I couldn't be saved, honestly, everything went dark. But right after that, Jun barged into my dumpy apartment..." Jun chugged his beer to hide his embarrassment, saying, "Don't say unnecessary things." Sho continued regardless. "Jun looked at the state of my room and had a look on his face like he didn't know what to say. But he just said one thing: 'Before you die of loneliness, work your hands to the bone. That's what I did,' and left behind an old laptop and this potted plant. ...At first I resented him, but as I watered it every day, seeing this small life trying to live regardless of my circumstances started to look like salvation to me." The smile he showed was a genuine light he had obtained after that grueling battle of 'self-regeneration.'

As I listened to their words, I felt the warmth on the other side of the boundary line.
"I, too... was afraid, thinking that drawing a boundary line was a cold thing to do. But now I understand that it is precisely because of this distance that I can cherish their words so much. Even if we don't completely melt into one another, we can still light our own lights under the same night sky like this. That is the new form of our 'kindness,' isn't it?"

A comfortable silence fell over the room. Jun sighed and gave a clumsy smile.
"Living is something you ultimately have to carry on your own. But when I think about troublesome people like you guys holding on in your own places, it makes me feel like I can try to fight this damn busy reality a little longer."

"Hey, since we're at it, why don't the three of us take a picture?"
Jun suddenly took out his smartphone, looking a little embarrassed.
"Huh, it's rare for Jun to take a selfie..."
Sho said in surprise. Jun said bluntly, "Shut up, it's for the record," while pointing the camera at them with unaccustomed hands.

When we tried to fit into the screen, we were confused by our distance from each other. If we were too close, I was afraid the boundary line would melt, and if we were too far, we wouldn't fit in the frame. We leaned in and pulled back, our clumsy movements overlapping, and we burst out laughing, saying, "Our sense of distance is bugged!"

When we checked the burst-shot images, one was severely blurred with only lines of light running through it, and another was a terrible face someone made the moment they moved.
"There isn't a single decent one!"
Jun laughed out loud, and we followed suit, holding our stomachs.

"...Tch, can't be helped. I guess I have to draw it."
Saying that, Jun picked up the sketchbook and pencil on the table with slightly tipsy hands. As if to pull back the passion he should have discarded long ago to protect this clumsy relationship, he drew the silhouettes of the three of us with smooth, unhesitating strokes.
"I'll have it finished by the next time we meet. Photos might not work, but I can lie with a drawing."
To Jun's joke, Sho replied with a laugh, "Lies are a problem." In the profile of Jun as he took up the brush again, I could see a quiet resolve to overcome his past setbacks and head toward his own form of 'regeneration.'

As the night deepened and it neared dawn, the three of us became quiet. We sat surrounding Jun's unfinished sketch, quietly tilting our glasses.
The thin glass was there, unbroken. We knew now, painfully well, that while warmth could be felt if we touched it, it would shatter if we gripped it too hard.

I whispered to myself in my heart.
None of us can completely save anyone.
But, while being careful not to break this thin glass, we will live our respective lives with pride while gently touching one another.

Outside the window, the eastern sky began to turn white, and a new day quietly opened its curtains. That pale light gently traced our boundary lines and illuminated each of our tomorrows equally.

We are going to be okay.
As long as we have this clumsy, beloved distance.

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Thank you for staying with me until the end.
I tried to depict a view of love centered on the heart, and what it looks like when one overlaps their own feelings with the happiness of others. I hope you enjoyed reading this bittersweetness. °・*:.。.☆
"This story is a work of fiction and has no relation to any real people or organizations."

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"#CreativeAward2026" "#RomanceNovelCategory"
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I also write stories like this.

These are one-shot fairy tales meant to heal the hearts of adults, sprinkled with sorrow and mysterious bittersweetness. I would be happy if I could deliver this gentle, heartwarming worldview to your heart.
If you are interested, I would be happy if you could stop by (⁎ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈⁎)

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I write poetry. I think the world of poetry is similar to philosophy. If you don't dislike it, please take a look. Also, if you are interested, I would be happy if you could experience my poetry. °・*:.。.☆

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I am writing a novel. Would you like to join me in enjoying the world of my favorite delusions and fantasies? If you don't mind, please take a look. Also, if you find it interesting, I would be happy if you could stop by. °・*:.。.☆

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I have compiled articles by wonderful creators that I found interesting, likable, or lovely. Please feel free to stop by if you'd like.