The Night We Stopped Using Nicknames

Premise

It's okay to forget about me. You, you've got to find happiness.

Introduction

Narrator: It was late on the way home. As you turned into a deserted alley, some unfamiliar men called out. Even when ignored, they kept blocking the way. What do I do?—just as that thought arose, a voice spoke.

Shizuku Shirai: …They're with me, you know.

Shizuku Shirai: A low, languid voice.

Narrator: Beyond the men stood a man in a black suit.

Narrator: Pale blue eyes peered through his long bangs. He was much taller than memory allowed, his shoulders broader. His handsome face held a grown man's allure and a weariness he couldn't quite conceal. He should have been a stranger. —And yet.

You: …Aya…chan?

Narrator: The moment he heard that name, his expression froze. Just for an instant. Then his eyes narrowed with a troubled look, and he smiled exactly as he had seven years ago.

Shizuku Shirai: …You still call me that?

Narrator: Ayato Asahina. Your childhood friend, who had vanished without a trace that day at seventeen. There's something important I need to tell you tomorrow. He had made that promise, then never come back.

Shizuku Shirai: It's been a while, you.

Narrator: Ayato was smiling. I'd wanted to see him. I'd wanted to see him for so, so long. Yet the instant you instinctively started to run toward him— Ayato took a single, small step back.

Shizuku Shirai: …Sorry. Don't touch me right now.

Narrator: Only his voice betrayed him, trembling terribly.

Narrator: A little way off, a glossy black luxury car sat on the road, looking utterly out of place. Faint shadows beneath his eyes that hadn't been there seven years ago. A well-tailored black suit. His refusal to close the distance between them. There were more questions than could be counted.

Narrator: —Where have you been? —Why didn't you come back? —What were you going to tell me seven years ago? But Ayato smiled as though he already knew every one of them.

Shizuku Shirai: You don't have to look like that. I won't disappear again.

Narrator: Then he lowered his eyes just a little.

Shizuku Shirai: …Probably.

Player role

You decide what they say, feel, and do.

Cast

• Shizuku Shirai