The Princess at the End of the World

Prologue

I'm always looking at her from afar.

Friends come and go by coincidence and by the passing of time, and I'm ok with that.

Whenever I take interest in anyone, I tend to keep my distance.

It's a kind of self-protection, I guess. I'm a realist. I don't want to go chasing after some kind of impossible dream.

She was just a bright star in the sky, and I was content with gazing at it from afar. After all, I'm only standing on the ground.

She was a princess. She looked like one and gave off the atmosphere of one. But I wasn't the only one who noticed; everyone did. She had the perfect image of a girl any guy would want to protect, like a princess waiting in the castle tower for her knight. But she also gave off an air of aloofness that kept people away. There were those who worshiped her, those who stayed close to her out of admiration, and those who envied but respected her existence - she was at the center of her own kingdom. But there are things one can only notice from outside her world. Her clear eyes were always wandering, never focused on anyone around her. She was a princess staring out the tower of her castle, waiting for someone to come and save her.

But that wouldn't be me. Every time our eyes met, I would look away. After all, I'm not some kind of prince.

Chapter One - The Premonition of a Storm

"Where are you looking?"

She turned slightly and gazed at me for a mere second, and then she faced the window once more.

"...the sky, maybe?"

But she needn't have spoken. Her eyes spoke for themselves. Her deep, black eyes glazed over as soon as I started the conversation.

"Maybe?"

When she didn't reply I spoke up again.

"You're always surrounded by everyone. But you seem much more at ease when you're looking out the window."

After I said that she glared at me for several seconds from the corner of her eye.

"Seto Takeru."

"What?"

"My name."

"I don't believe I've asked."

"You looked like you wanted to know."

She ignored this comment, and just when I thought I had offended her she spoke up again.

"Hashiba Miu."

"I know. Everyone knows about you."

At that note her eyes narrowed and she averted her gaze once more.

"...is that so."

At that time, I thought I noticed a hint of loneliness in her placid expression, but could only face her with a hesitant smile.

"What's-"

"Your friend's looking for you." She pointed at the door of the classroom, where Jun stood with a stunned look on his face.

"Jun. Back from practice already?"

"If you'll excuse me..."

Before I could say anything she had already passed Jun, who awkwardly stepped aside as she left the room.

A brief moment of silence followed, during which I contemplated whether there was anything more I could have said. Then I was abruptly knocked back to reality, literally, by-

"Takeru you bastard-! What were you talking to Hashiba about?"

"Um... it was nothing really, nothing at all!" I shoved him back and grinned anxiously at the other guys also returning to the classroom.

"Hey you'd better spill or I'm not even backing you up if those guys find out."

"What's there to spill? I just told her my name."

"No way. The Princess asked for your name? You've making this up. What did you two talk about?"

"...the sky, maybe?"

"Maybe?" Jun's face twitched in confusion. "You're on your own, man. No one's going to believe you were chatting about the sky when it's that cloudy outside."

I turned to the nearest window, and sure enough, the sky was weighted down by a mass of enormous gray clouds.

The usually clear shade of blue was hardly visible in the overcast sky. In fact-

"It looks like it's going to rain." I mumbled to myself.

Chapter Two - On the Other Side of the Fortress

I turned around at the sound of approaching footsteps, and my eyes met the figure of a beautiful girl.

Even as surprised as I was I let out a casual smile.

"It's you again," she said with an unreadable expression.

As she had stared at my face for a long moment before saying that, I took it that she had almost completely forgotten about our earlier meeting.

"What brings you here so late?"

"This is where I take the bus to get home."

As I carefully considered how to better phrase my question, the sky dimmed as the overcast clouds shifted.

"I mean, what you were doing at school at this late-"

Before I could finish talking, both of us were staring at the sky, as the first drops of rain began to fall.

Hearing the faint sound of thunder in the distance, my eyes drifted from the droplets of rain water sliding down the metal plate that marked the bus stop to my watch.

"Not for another twenty minutes, huh..."

And I glanced back at the girl standing a few feet away from me, with her eyes cast upon the darkening sky. The light from the first lightning bolts flickered in her eyes, and for an instant, the raindrops around her seemed to emit a faint gleam.

It was almost as if she was shinning, shinning a light brighter than the stars.

Chapter Three - The Light at the End of the World

"Are you afraid of lightning?"

"Not really."

Thunder crashed down again, and lightning split the sky open above us. Flashes of violet and green and the stunning streak of gold lining burned in my vision.

"I wonder if, at the end of the world, there will a light as stunning as this one."

"The end of the world? Do you want to die?"

"Everyone dies eventually."

Harsh words from such a fragile looking princess. But as she stared with an intense glare at the evening sky, I thought I saw something bright in her eyes that was more than just a reflection of the lightning bolts flashing in the distance.

"Aren't you scared of dying?"

She turned to me with a curious look on her face, only for it to fade into indifference when she replied a minute later.

"I have no regrets."

"Huh?"

"Even if the world ends tomorrow, I would have no regrets."

My stare went blank for a second, as the tiniest bit of envy gripped at my heart. The princess could abandon her own kingdom with no regrets. I hesitated to even glance out the window of my own fortress, yet how could a princess with a kingdom to call her own so easily accept the end of her world?

I opened my mouth to speak, but at that moment I noticed a void of sorrow fill her eyes as she looked back up at the sky.

Maybe I was wrong. She was a princess, but maybe it wasn't the world she had chosen for herself. Maybe she was desperately looking for somewhere else to belong, just as I was building barriers to create a world for myself.

"If..."

"If your world ends tomorrow-"

She smiled and glanced at me from the corner of her eye. "What would you do...?"

"...you're welcome to escape to mine."

When I said that she turned and looked straight into my eyes, and this time, I didn't look away.

As lightning split through the sky, piercing the barriers between us, we stood alone but together, under the blinding light at the end of the world.