I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

Neo’s parents haven’t contacted him since our escape. When Sony
died, he was escorted back to his room and hasn’t emerged since.
Hikari and I have tried to visit him, but he never answers the door. C
hasn’t had the chance to so much as leave his room till now.
He doesn’t waste time knocking. He barges into Neo’s room without
forewarning.
“Neo?” he calls. “We have to go now, I–”
Neo’s bed is empty. Instead, there is a boy crawling on the ground,
looking under the bed, around it, searching every crevice in the room
with a frantic look in his eye.
C stalls. “What are you doing?”
Neo doesn’t bother with formalities. He doesn’t even acknowledge
us.
“Hee,” Neo says, moving his bedsheets around.
“What?”
“The cat,” he repeats.
I notice now, his hair is uncombed and it doesn’t look like he’s
changed clothes in a long time. The sweatshirt he wore the night of
Sony’s episode is in the corner of his room, folded, but unwashed,
blood staining the seams.
“She was just here,” Neo mutters to himself, searching the same
spaces over and over again as if Hee will appear in one of them if he
looks enough times. “I need to find her.”
“Neo, we’ll find her later,” C says. “We have to go now.”
But C isn’t the only one who’s disconnected. Upon C’s words, Neo
finally looks up.