Hoya used to think he was lost.

If life offered him a compass that would guide him to wherever he wanted to go, needed to go, should go, he would take it with greedy fingers. If life tried to give him a map—or even a list of directions!—that would lead him down the path to finding himself, he would take it without a second thought.

Unfortunately, life wasn’t that easy. There was no shortcut, no guidance, no assistance. If he wanted to get somewhere, he would have to use his own abilities to get there on his own.

Hoya used to think he was alone.

No matter how many people he spoke to, nor how large of a crowd surrounded him with cheers and rough pats on the back, he felt as if he was alone. No matter how much attention he got from his dancing and crazy antics, no matter how much people fawned over his person, he was never in the spotlight.

Hoya could be holding his arms up to head-thrumming, heart-racing, ear-splitting cheers and applause, and still feel as if he was by himself. There was nothing sincere or genuine about the cheers. He wasn’t good enough to receive that kind of applause.

Hoya used to think he wasn’t special.

“Everybody’s special,” his friends told him. “We’re all unique in our own ways.” ‘Unique’ wasn’t special, though, he told himself. There was clear difference—it was being different, or being so different that it made him amazing. Special.

Was it worth trying? He wondered sometimes. Trying so hard, just to know that there was nothing exceptional about what he did? Putting his heart into his work and coming out of it, bleeding, sweating, crying, and with no gain to boast of?

Hoya used to think he wouldn’t succeed.

It wasn’t just his grades that shot him down, it was his family, ‘friends’, sometimes even the random people he wanted to describe as lower than he. It was the lack of shine in people’s eyes as they looked at him that had him inwardly crestfallen and hurt.

To look at where he had ended up, he couldn’t say that he had succeeded. And even if he looked ahead of him, at a future that had the potential to be brighter, he could see nothing but gloomy skies and stormy clouds.

When he thought he couldn’t do it, knew he couldn’t do it, couldn’t do it, she made it happen with naught more than a snap of her fingers.

That was an exaggeration, of course.

She supported him, assisted him, and made sure that he succeeded in everything and anything he wanted to do.

It was thanks to her that he was able to believe that he could succeed.

There was nothing in her words that could have put him down. It was the strange sort of ease and sweetness in how she spoke and the things she said that made him feel special.

She told him he was special.

It really did feel like having a place in her heart, a different sort of home that he would never be kicked out of.

It was thanks to her that he was able to believe that he was special.

There wasn’t a moment she wasn’t with him.

Which wasn’t at all an exaggeration.

Whether it be in body, in virtual reality, in mind, in spirit, in heart—she was always there beside him and keeping him company.

It was thanks to her that he was able to believe that he wasn’t alone.

She may have lost things herself, maybe even lost herself, but she never stopped searching for him.

She found him.

She found the person he’d thought he’d lost—himself.

It was thanks to her that Hoya was able to believe that he wasn’t lost.