ARC-V IF #009 - Future

After her presentation, Yuzu rushed back to her seat, flustered and light-headed. She hoped that her dad's school got clients soon, or they really would go bankrupt... and then her dreams of taking it easy, never worrying about debts and bills would... No, no she couldn't think that way!

 

It'd all work out! It had to, after all, she already got the Phantom, Maiami City's biggest star, on the payroll!

 

Yuya silently rose from his seat when his name was called and she watched him walk past her desk to the front. He was uncharacteristically quiet, and Yuzu caught a glimpse of his blackboard... it was blank.

 

Something quiet and disturbing had taken ahold of the classroom mood when Yuya stood at the front of the room with his blank board. And he wasn't smiling.

 

"What do I see in my future? Well..." Yuya's voice was soft, very soft. It was reflective, as if he'd thought about this a long time ago and never changed his answer. "I don't see anything. There isn't a future for someone like me."

 

Then suddenly at a drop of a hat, Yuya's lips split into a smile and the mood changed. He radiated like sunshine and tilted the board to one side, sounding like he was trying very hard not to laugh.

 

"Or, well, that's just a morbid way of saying I haven't decided yet!" Yuya said, laughter in his voice. He walked back to his desk, faster than he had gone up to the board, and he was smiling and laughing with the other students.

 

Clown, they called him.

 

But Yuzu had seen it in his eyes. Yuya was lonely, and he'd lost his path years and years ago, when he decided to become the Phantom of Maiami City. No, perhaps he had lost it when G.O.D. was born.

She wondered just how many things burdened him. If he had ever been truly alive, was he happy then?