A Different Script

The World Moves Without Me

The scent of disinfectant had become part of him now.
Every breath he took felt filtered, sterile — the air too clean to be real.

Aqua lay still beneath the thin hospital sheets, eyes half-open, his body still but his mind never quiet. The dim lights above hummed faintly, and the monitors near his bed pulsed with the slow, steady rhythm of a survivor.

He didn’t feel like one.

He remembered the moments before he passed out — his father’s expression, the weight of the knife, the way the rain had looked like silver threads falling between them. He’d done it. The revenge he’d been chasing for years was finally complete. The monster who’d taken everything from him was gone.

It should’ve felt like freedom.
It didn’t.

There was only exhaustion. The kind that sat deep in the bones — the kind you couldn’t sleep away.

He’d told himself it was okay to live now. That he’d fulfilled his purpose. That he could finally rest.
But every time he closed his eyes, he saw Ai. Her smile. Her blood. His own shaking hands.
Peace didn’t come easy for someone who never believed they deserved it.

He shifted slightly, the sheets whispering beneath him.
His voice, weak but audible, escaped him.

“Kana…”

Her name felt like an echo in an empty room.

He remembered the night she came.

He’d been “asleep” then, pretending again — half out of habit, half because he didn’t know what to say if anyone spoke to him. The door had opened quietly, the hall lights spilling across the floor in a narrow stripe.

Soft footsteps. A rustle.
Then her voice.

“You look awful, you know.”

He wanted to laugh, but he didn’t move.

She stood beside the bed, arms crossed, but her eyes told a different story — red, puffy, and tired. She wasn’t wearing makeup, her hair was tied up messily, like she hadn’t planned to come but did anyway.

“You scared everyone, idiot.”

Her voice cracked a little at that. She sighed and sat in the chair beside him, her hand hovering over his, hesitant.
Then she whispered — so quietly that even the machines seemed to stop to listen:

“I thought you were going to die before I ever got to yell at you again.”

Aqua had wanted to open his eyes then. To say something — anything.
But he didn’t.
He just listened.

“You probably can’t hear me,” she said softly. “But… don’t you dare think you can just leave. We’re waiting for you. Akane, Ruby… me. You still have work to do.”

Then she stayed like that for a long time, her hand finally resting lightly against his. He remembered the warmth — faint, but real. Then the sound of her quiet sniffle before she stood and left as silently as she came.

He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t breathed too deeply.
Because if he did, he might’ve reached for her — and he wasn’t ready for that kind of truth yet.

Now, the morning after, sunlight crept back into the sterile white room. He blinked against it, the world too bright for someone who’d lived in darkness so long.

The door slid open.
Footsteps again.
But this time, it wasn’t Kana.

“You don’t have to pretend, it’s just me,” said the doctor with a faint smile.