For a long time we sat there, while the sound of the forest slowly and laboriously returned, like a last breaths of a dying man. At last, he had stood up and bowed stiffly. "I trust that you will choose wisely."

I couldn't bother to see him out or watch how he left but instead I looked at the contract to my left, and then the one to my right. At first, nothing happened. My mind was empty. I was staring across a silent desert with white-parched sand. But one piercing cry of a crow from some godforsaken branch above, against the storm clouds, was all it took.

Things begin to churn around me like the flushing of a drain. It all spirals down wet and heavy into my head, flooding my soul with this tide of cold water like the clutch of a gigantic creature, gripping me with its talons. It all washes over my face and I reel, nearly falling over. The world swishes back and forth like a bowl of soup. I steady myself on the table and take off my glasses. I close my eyes.

Shizuka. Who I had trusted, who I must surely be in love with I realize, who I have been missing, who I long to see, who had ripped open a hole inside me. Her hair, her skin, her warmth, her smell, her taste, her touch, her lips, her eyes. Everything that had become reality and truth, my foundation, on which I built a future from an old Naoki Maeda of redundant motions. In whom, my hopes had lain, my hopes for survival. Each moment we shared, day in and day out. Slowly it shatters, crumbling sand, sifting beneath my feet. It disappears like the blood draining out of my face.

Was that all she was? A fragile construction I had subconsciously shaped and raised on a pedestal and worshipped like an idol god. An alleviation for my own loneliness and weakness. My own saviour. But she had never belonged to me or was truly invested in my matters. I had been working with a wolf in disguise. All that I've strived to do all these months, had she been against it in secret all along? Had she been sending suits after me, intricately weaving a master plan, playing victim alongside for amusement, leading me deeper into the rabbit hole where I would be paralyzed and left without an exit. Poisoning my mind and disappearing without a trace, like watching a game between fighting fish.

Such speculation that she had betrayed me, never cared for me, plotting behind my back racks me with anguish and agonizes me to no end. This violent pain pierces through me and I am crippled. It's more total and more concentrated than anything I've ever experienced before, narrowed to a fine sharp point, that I cannot resist or defend against its damage. I feel it enter me as a wedge and draw blood. My body shudders, I sweat, and feel the sensation of loss and finality. I had thought there was nothing left within me. But whatever still remained died, again.

I climb into bed even though it's early in the evening and curl up into a ball like a child. I had never felt so pathetic, hopeless and helpless before. So utterly devastated and incapacitated. I am nothing but a weeping child.

I fade in and out of sleep and in my dreams I remember her. I see her in full. I remember the look in her eyes, the surrendering warmth of her body as she invited me inside, the whisper of her hot breath and soft levelheaded contradictory words, our faces pressed together in a paramount photograph, the visionary dreams and the vast night sky above on which the universe ebbed and flowed, the prophetic wisdom she tried to impart over and over - these experiential recollections flood me as if she is still here in my arms, right beside me: how could that all be perfect pretense? An elaborate ruse. Measured and calculated moves.

But no, you didn't have to go so far. Not for me. You had it all together, there would be no need to associate with me. Why did you approach me if it would violate your Etiquette? Didn't you only need to report to your employer and thus, have me meet some wretched end? Why would you destroy yourself? Why have you sacrificed yourself?

Yet she says nothing in reply. I search through my mind and through the Collective I must have encountered but there's no Shizuka there. I hear only the rustle of the leaves outside and the creak of floorboards. The sound of darkness.

The next day, my composure remained in tatters. I could barely stand up or cook breakfast. My entire body felt like lead. My eyes were visionless. Instead I wandered into the forest, forgetting my knife, without any sense or conscious clarity, in no specific direction. There were no rabbits or crows this time. The forest remained silent and melancholic, like it was sympathetic of my situation. Should it swallow me, it might come as a comfort.

At some point, I managed to stumble across the same clearing. It suddenly opened up before me. Above stretched an overcast sky like this blanket of thick wool. This time I crossed the field, no water, no food, no knife, nothing but my soul. The grass is up to my knees, and the hidden troughs of creatures beneath must not have occurred to me when I had made the initial trek.

It's on top of the hill, at the top of the large round mound, almost as if I could touch the sky when I collapse, entirely exhausted. On that hill I sit, watching the clouds above. Around me, a ring of green trees stretch towards the horizon. The clearing looks like a perfect round hole punched in green paper. From the top, the rest of the world seems so miniscule. Even though it had never seemed that high, the change in perspective makes a huge difference.

I gather up a lungful of air, and wrench all the nothing that's within me, this heavy weighty load on my chest like a solid lump, and I hurl it at the sky. With all my might, I shout. Something I couldn't make any sense of myself. My cry must have echoed for miles around over tree tops chasing birds out of their nesting. No one but animal spirits could have heard me. I watch the sound boomerang back to me. It doesn't feel much better.

I lay down and steady my breathing. I wiggle my fingers and stretch out my legs. Overhead, a flock of Japanese white-eye birds pass by, twittering and freewheeling. Underneath, like in my dreams, a bed of grass cushions my back. It's like floating on a cloud. I wouldn't mind spending time like this, until I could see the stars above tonight. I realize I haven't heard or read the news in a week now. Entirely disconnected with the world. I'm unaware of the activity of the Cause or the weather forecast. Surely, the hostel woman must be concerned. Or perhaps not.

Then a strong cold wind strikes me like a truck. I couldn't see or feel anything for a good minute. Like a physical slap to the face. And it, at once surprisingly, clears my mind. The things of the world become small and insignificant. Here and there, a felled tree the size of a toothpick lies diagonally, without enough room to lay down to rest. Little details in the distance which I could cover with a finger. All matter became inconsequential and my eyes begin to open.

Both my mother and Morikawa had held on to their own unconfirmed perspectives, taking it as law, as truth. Sounding ever authoritative and persuasive. But am I obligated to believe them? Is there any truth? Is there any real objective truth beyond opinion? If the world is composed of individual perception and conception, no one is right. Not Morikawa, not Chitose, not Shirayuki, not Shizuka and not me.

All would have to start from zero. From the ground up, from within, the seeds of nothingness, built not from someone else's desires, but from my own lack of a foundation. From my own innate core and convictions. I needed nothing else.

I think about this man called Morikawa and all of a sudden I see not a man, but a concept. A mass of words and black smoke, spitting and guzzling in apocalyptic pollution. It creeps forward, from where he had sat, turning the very floor dark, swallowing the grass and the trees outside slowly like a plague. The words he spoke hadn't held all the answers. Instead, it avoided certain questions and illuminated only selective facts to the point where it had become blinding and commanding. That is the key to his speech. If I turn to the hidden questions I had uncovered, brush away all the soil that had buried it under, what might I find?

I recall that she had attended the same school and in my pocket now is her note. This is from where I must start. Who had it been meant for and what had she gone through? Who had helped her that year? Had I already known her?

No, I realize, the story isn't over. I hadn't unearthed all the answers and I would need to continue to search and dig onwards. If it's for my own curiosity or for justice, I don't know, but if I'm to follow my intuition, when I dig further, I come up against a blank wall for a moment. I stare at this nothing in the face and wait. For a long while. Though my eyes bore holes into the grass, and meet bedrock, I search further. There must be something beyond.

After what might have been hours, something unhinges within me, with an almost audible pop, a cork coming off of a bottle - I suddenly remember the Resso coffee shop. Its blatant red sign and vintage furniture. The aroma of coffee assails my nose from deep within my memories. The origin of all. I take a deep breath. Then I recall: a single cup of tall caramel chai tea latte, soy, extra whip, 120 degrees. In my mind, it becomes a beautiful flawless artifact as I turn it around from all angles. How exquisite. As if it's something from an old photograph, yellowed and stained with age. But it reflects a pristine crystallized moment turned back in time. It carries not only memory but emotions. Pure, unsullied emotion that warms me through the core. I remember the shine of the light playing against the fired and glazed cup. The simplicity of the white, browns and tans in the cup against the wood of the table. Then I see Shizuka behind the brim of the cup. And I look into her eyes. Once again, her eyes draw me in, with otherworld intensity and depth. And I am again in her world. In her world of chai latte. And she smiles.

She had told me to remember her order. That it would be important.