The Boy With The Blank Stare: The Promise

Chapter Twenty Nine: A Chance To Move On

Aito's POV:

I laughed silently as I clicked through the mostly unencrypted files. There were so many incidents or fun events Takura seemed to have been a part of.

I didn't even know he liked pranks and yet setting them up he seemed in his element, he even had a funny clown mask and it made me wonder where it had ended up after everything.

...

Saihara wants me to finish this soon...I want to do it still but...I wish I knew how close this group actually was. Then I would have been able to be a decent person when I met Ouma.

...

Is...is recovering the video files even enough of a redemption? It's not good enough...and even then, I don't think I just want to get the files and just move on with my life.

These weeks of spending time to learn about my brother, I never realized how much I actually lost. All my life I've been building him as someone who was just depressed and trying to put on a brave face, that's what those teachers who ever talked about mental health built suicide victims as...

But that's the thing isn't it? There's always more, my brother wasn't just depressed every day and every second. He had fun pulling pranks, and going to arcades. He had people he cared about and must have thought about during those final days.

I wonder if he thought of me.

And yet all anyone will ever remember about my brother is the way he died. Not about the kind of person he was or any other details about what his favorite show or what his hobbies were, I thought these details before were irrelevant because he was dead but...

They make me feel as though I did get to know him. As if I still have a brother.

Maybe I still do, even if he isn't around to take me to school or help me with homework or annoy me every day with little habits or bully me for being the younger one.

Because...he was here. Even if I'll never see him again.

...

Wonder if...maybe I can do something about how Takura and all those other kids are seen...

I pulled up the contact list from Takura's old email account, and scrolled down to the ones labeled 'classmates'.

I think we all deserve a chance to remember them, and to finally maybe move on without them.