~Don't look for a place to die — look for a place to live.~
1. A Pleasure Without a Name
I don't know how to explain it.
Not even to myself.
As if from the very beginning, I never truly wanted to understand—
I only wanted to see others suffer.
Especially those who, from my point of view,
seemed to be walking in the "wrong" direction.
Even though I knew.
I knew very well.
A point of view can lie.
I learned that from the books I read,
from the films I watched.
But that knowledge always lost to one thing:
pleasure.
The pleasure of being with Misaki.
The pleasure of when the world shrank until only the two of us remained.
The pleasure of stopping my thoughts and simply feeling.
And that was where I lost myself.
For the first time in my life—
I chose feeling over truth.
I just didn't want to see her cry.
That was all.
I couldn't bear seeing her eyes filled with tears
knowing I was the cause.
She helped me.
Yet the way she helped was by pushing me
deeper into the same abyss.
And strangely…
I felt a kind of satisfaction there
I had never known before.
Then I began to wonder:
What if this feeling never ended?
What if the world left one small space—
belonging only to the two of us?
Would she be happy if I did all this for her?
I even once thought about giving up my life for her.
And that was when I realized something terrifying:
I was not loving.
I was erasing myself.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2. The Law of Cause and Effect
Then everything collapsed.
I can't believe it became like this.
What have I actually done?
I knew nothing.
I walked too far without a compass.
If I kept misunderstanding her,
without regret, without guilt,
I would only become someone who hurts her—
and worse than that:
someone who throws all my sins onto her shoulders.
Onto Misaki's shoulders.
I began to see her more honestly.
No matter how gracefully she pretended,
her true desires were always different
from the face she showed the world.
And when we believed we had achieved something together—
her wish and mine—
I ended up placing the entire burden on her.
I was too absorbed in myself.
Thinking all of this was an exciting game.
Until I crossed the line.
And like a law that never fails:
those who cross the line
always pay with bitterness.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
3. The Limits of Regret
Do I regret it?
Yes.
I do.
But even that regret feels disgraceful
when I realize the most shameful truth:
if Misaki had never come back to find me,
I might have justified everything without hesitation.
Perhaps I was too naive—
hoping for a formula for a happy ending.
A certainty that could keep everyone from misfortune.
Even though I knew:
such a thing never exists.
What exists is only one word
that always arrives too late:
limits.
No matter how comfortable a happiness feels,
it still needs boundaries.
Without limits, it only becomes
a new source of destruction—
repeating, and repeating, and repeating…
until nothing remains but regret.
Now, after hearing her true feelings,
I finally understand something important:
Even if not every wish comes true—
change still happens.
A change that helped Misaki learn
to recognize her limits.
And somehow…
that realization keeps me
from drowning completely in regret.
Because even if I must now accept punishment—
punishment for the boundaries I crossed myself,
for the strangeness I created with my own hands—
I know one thing:
out there…
someone is still waiting for me.
And for the first time in a long while,
I am not truly alone.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
4. The New World
This incident may be the end of my old self—
the version of me that always ran away,
a coward who escaped every consequence.
But at the same time,
it feels like another beginning.
Not a clean beginning.
Not a pure one.
But the beginning of a person
who finally admits his own shadow.
I want to do what I still can—
even if it is only something small.
Because now I understand:
what matters is not searching for a place to die,
but…
searching for a place to live—
even when life itself
feels full of sin.