Shape of a Miracle EP 2 - FreezeFrame

A gift from a friend?

The front door thrusts open. A winter coat is thrown on the rack. Shoes are kicked off a pair of feet.

"Shoya!" A voice yells from the other room "You better not be making a mess in there!"

"Sorry, mum!"

Escaping the dark, dusty hallway of his home. Ishida sprints up the stairs to his cluttered room.

The cabinet. It's in there! Right in front of him! the impossible, the unexplainable, the unattainable! The little red box.

He gulps. Is he really going to do this? Is he really going to take the advice of Shimada of all people? Granted, it's not like he's really doing this under that idiot's recommendation. It's more that Shimada's own meaningless ramblings happen to strike a cord with him.

He has to stop running away from this. He has to stop pretending that he didn't see what he saw. He has to be a man and face whatever craziness is locked away in those drawers. Right now, he has to find that little red box -And open it!

He leaps to his cabinet scrambling through his T-shirts, hoodies and all sorts, trying to find the box he threw in here two months ago.

Nothing.

He slides each drawer out of its panels, emptying each one onto the floor. His eyes scower through every piece of daggy clothes he has.

Still nothing.

He rushes to his bed and drags the plastic boxes out from underneath it. One by one, he flips them upside down, letting all his games spill onto his mattress and scans the pile of consoles and CD's. Damnit, why can't he find this thing?

He jumps to his shelf and the whole bookcase is flung onto the floor. It has to be here! It has to! Unless he just imagined it? No! He's not going down that road again! It was a cheap looking jewellery box, one you could find in a corner store. Inside it were these red earrings with black polka dots on them. It was here! It was right here ! They were-

CRUNCH.

He looks down, under his right foot is one of his notebooks. No, wait, it technically isn't his notebook.

"Crap!"

He jumps back and snatches the notebook off the ground, anxiously brushing off any dirt he got on it. What an idiot! He can't just leave this lying around, it's too important! He holds it up, looking for any visible dents he made on it. It's completely wrecked, but it was like that when he found it. What a relief. He didn't do any further damage.

Oh.

That's right.

It doesn't really matter one way or the other.

His knees cave in. He's a complete idiot. Who cares? Who cares what he did or didn't see. Who cares what he did or didn't do? He doesn't need another reason to hate himself. All this is just a distraction to what his real focus should be! There's something he needs to do. Someone he needs to meet. Someone he needs to give this notebook to. The last thing on his bucket list. So whatever this is, it has nothing to do with him. It's not a part of his story. He's just Shoya Ishida, the loser, the nobody, the bully...

Lying on the floor, he stares at the ceiling fan for a good seven minutes, closing his open drawers, one by one. Except the last. No matter how hard he pushes it, it sticks out just a little.

He sits up, now facing it, mocking him for his pointless endeavours. He rams his fist against it. Still, it doesn't move an inch. It is a pretty cheap cabinet, something must have gotten jammed behind one of the drawers again.