This is my longest oneshot in the history of ever. I may have gotten too carried away, haha. Just a heads up: this strays from LTM and Toumei Answer and canon events. I actually almost forgot about Takane and Haruka, you know? I quickly slipped them in there, so they might be a tad out of place.

Also, this is unedited. More like I tried to edit it, realized the great discrepancies in tenses, and gave up.

At the ripe young age of 6, Kisaragi Shintaro learnt that he was gifted.

Adults would often come up to him and shake his parents' hands, telling them how lucky they were to have a gifted child. Shintaro didn't quite understand what that meant, but he assumed it was a good thing, from the way his parents smiled.

Within a week, he had searched for the word in the dictionary and learnt its definition off by heart: having great special talent or ability, and - although he didn't understand it very well, he liked this one better - having exceptionally high intelligence.

The adults would also pat his head in an attempt of affection, but they would almost always press just too hard, and Shintaro could tell they really didn't like him at all. He quickly learnt that not all adults said what they meant and meant what they said; and when his parents asked what he had learnt that day and he had told them that, they looked at each other for an awfully long time.

"My precious Shin," his mother hugged him, rubbing his back up and down. He looked at his father over his mother's shoulder, and his father gave him a wide grin.

"You'll go far, Shintaro," his father said, and then proceeded to read the newspaper.

When he was 8, Shintaro learnt that he wouldn't ever really understand other children.

It was just another test. They had one just about every week for the silliest things - spelling words they were ordered to remember but weren't all that hard, numbers to add and numbers to divide, facts about living plants and animals - and this one was just a short spelling test.

It was just another test, and Shintaro didn't understand why everyone was so caught up over their results.

"Ah, I knew I got that one wrong," one girl sighed. Another tried to comfort her, reminding her that she might not be good at spelling but she's "the best at dancing." Shintaro didn't understand why saying something like that was necessary, because the topic was the spelling test and how the girl didn't go so well and what did it matter how good she was at dancing? That wasn't the topic.

"I bet you got 100 again, Kisaragi," the boy next to him teased, with a hint of jealousy that was so obvious it wasn't even a hint anymore. Shintaro remembered the boy's name of course, having sat next to him for the past month, but he tried to forget. It never worked.

"It was easy," was all he said.

That was apparently not the best response.

"Acting all smart," the boy muttered, clenching his tiny fists on the desk. "Why do you have to be such a jerk about it?"

Shintaro didn't know how he was being a jerk about anything. If he went on about how well he went, then sure, he'd willingly punch himself for the boy. But he only said three words, didn't he? Unless he'd said something he never knew he said.

In the next math quiz, Shintaro saw the bright red 100 on both his paper and that of the boy next to him. But their teacher, for some reason, chose to give less attention to those who got the sums perfectly than she normally did. Shintaro could feel the waves of disappointment radiating off the boy, and he didn't understand it. The boy got a perfect score, didn't he? Did he want the attention that badly? Shintaro never really liked being forced in the spotlight, and if he could, he would just lock himself up in his room and never come out.

When he told his mother that he wanted to hide in his room forever, his mother looked surprised.

"Shin, there's so much to see in the world!" she told him, grasping his shoulders. "So many new things each day, so many places and friends to see! There's so much to live for."

Her smile was so wide - it was probably the brightest smile he'd seen her give since Momo was born three years ago – and Shintaro didn't have the heart to tell her how each day for him was so ordinary and so routine that he disagreed with her. He didn't really know what she wanted him to live for.

At age 11, Kisaragi Shintaro learnt just how cruel the world could be.

His father wanted to take the family out early to the beach, waking the entire house with proclamations of how 'summer just isn't complete without the beach'. Momo was all for the idea; and if his mother hadn't had one of her dizzy spells that day, she surely would have gone as well.

They intended to drag Shintaro along, but Shintaro's ideal summer was staying in his room with the aircon blasting, preferably directly at his face. He told Momo this, and she only pouted and continued dragging him by the arm. He sighed, and pulled his arm to make Momo face him.

"Hey Momo," he said. He had to crouch to look her in the eye. "How about I stay here in the house and take care of Mom, while you go with Dad and take care of him? Doesn't that sound like a beautiful idea?"

Momo looked doubtful, mumbling about how fun it would be with the whole family. Shintaro waited, and Momo finally nodded and said okay, with her face gradually brightening like a lightbulb.

Shintaro watched his father get in the car after making sure Momo was safely in, and he and his mother waved at them through the rear mirror of the car. They watched the car leave until it turned at the corner, and Shintaro helped his mother into bed again.

It was an hour later when his mother got the call from the hospital, and Shintaro realized the back of his father's head through the rear window was the last he would ever see of him.

They couldn't even visit him in the hospital - his mother never learnt to drive, and even if she did, she would've been unfit to drive anyway. Momo was brought home by a doctor who surprisingly had spare time and whose attention was unsurprisingly caught by Momo, who Shintaro knew no doubt had been bawling her eyes out by their father's bed in the hospital.

Shintaro knew for sure, because that was what he would've done if it had been him with his dad.

That night, in his bed that was too big and too cold for one child, in a room where he was left to his own thoughts, he cried. In the room next to his, his sister did the same, and their cries intermingled through the wall without either of them knowing it.

Late in his 12th year, Shintaro learnt that putting extra effort in was like taking two steps forward and being shoved five steps backwards.

His mother started to take on three part-time jobs, in an effort to support their family while handling the costs of his father's funeral plus interest. She was rarely ever home, and Shintaro had to do much of the looking after Momo while they divided chores between themselves.

It was a routine they all slowly adjusted to; but each time Shintaro caught a glimpse of his mother at home, she looked paler and slightly more haggard than the last time. He also had to wake her up more often, and his mother seemed very sluggish when getting the milk from the fridge.

A week after Shintaro had to bang two pans like cymbals to wake his mother up, she passed out at their doorstep on her way out. Shintaro had to call the ambulance because Momo was panicking and very out-of-it.

They learnt that their mother had more than fatigue and overwork in her system. The doctor diagnosed her with anemia, some bone fractures from her fainting, a bunch of other illnesses, and also anxiety and depression. If Shintaro had been in the mood, he would have argued that the doctor couldn't possibly have known the last two for sure, because those were diagnoses that needed the patient's input.

The doctor couldn't have known for sure, because his mother had been out like a light for fourteen hours straight.

In his 13th year, Shintaro learnt he was getting sick of the antiseptic scent in his mother's hospital room, which even the most pungent flowers couldn't mask. Although he hated to say it, he didn't want to visit his mother anymore.

When he was 14, Shintaro learnt that he couldn't wait to be ordinary.

There was a phrase, that apparently when you were a child they called you a genius, when you became a teen they called you talented, and once you reached adulthood you were reduced to an ordinary human.

It was a big, fat lie if he ever heard one.

Sure, he used to be called gifted when he was six. The teachers, the adults, all praised him for his exceptionally high intelligence. There had been a special test arranged by the school for him in third grade, and the questions had honestly been the easiest things to answer, but people started calling him a genius afterwards.

But at age 14, well into his teenage years, no one called him talented. Teachers had come to expect high results from him, like it was a favor he had to do for them. They didn't call him talented anymore, because they no longer commented on it. It was a normal occurrence, almost a routine.

And the people his age - well, they never called him a genius as a child, anyway. They didn't call him talented, either; only words like rude or snobbish or conceited. Shintaro almost laughed at the last one, because the boy who'd said it almost mispronounced it, and it was obvious how much effort he was putting in to sound clever, and it was backfiring on him.

Once again, Shintaro didn't understand how he was being conceited, how he was being rude about anything. He also thought that maybe, maybe if he wasn't a genius or talented or gifted, then he would understand. Maybe he wouldn't be rude or snobbish or conceited.

Maybe if he was ordinary, things would be okay. Maybe Momo wouldn't be forced to use her talent at such an early age to earn for the family, and maybe her grades wouldn't have to suffer. Maybe Shintaro would still be visiting his mother in hospital. Maybe his mother wouldn't even be in hospital.

Shintaro knew that last one was impractical – his normality would have no effect on the transfer of pathogens and his mother's physical health – but he didn't know where else to put the blame. Blaming himself for anything and everything seemed like the easiest choice.

When he was 15, Shintaro learnt that there was nothing left to live for.

His mother's words ran through his head at least twice a day - "Shin, there's so much to see in the world! So many new things each day, so many places and friends to see! There's so much to live for." - and each day, he realized that he had none of those.

He saw the same things everyday – the same empty house, the same dining table, the same road to school, the same hallways, the same crowds in class, the same road home, the same alarm clock reminding him of another day he'll live in routine. Friends were always immediately repelled the moment he opened his mouth - but it wasn't his fault that the boy who sat next to him when they were 8 years old had put him off communication with other humans for life.

The only abnormality was that girl who sat next to him in class. Each day, she was talking to a different person, greeting everyone she walked past with a good morning, asking everyone how their day had been going so far.

Tateyama Ayano was the epitome of the phrase 'little ball of sunshine', and she blinded Shintaro.

"Good morning, Shintaro-kun!" the girl greeted him just as he was about to sit at his desk. Shintaro didn't see anything good about the morning; but he didn't see anything terrible about it either, so he grunted in response. Tateyama deserved at least that much.

The girl took the seat next to him – the one in the back row beside the window, the seat of the typical hero or protagonist, the seat she liked so much – and she kept her gaze on him. Shintaro wasn't sure if she was at a loss for a topic, or if she was waiting expectantly for him to continue the conversation; but either way, Shintaro thought she really should know better.

"H-Hey, um." Tateyama tapped a rhythm on the desk with her index finger. "Shintaro-kun, do you have any siblings?"

Shintaro knew where this would lead before the girl even finished her sentence. He knew well enough how popular his sister had become since she signed a contract with that Idoltaro company, the one their mother had been so against when she was still healthy and in charge of the household. The only reason half the people in class knew his name was because of Momo; and the only reason they ever bothered to speak with him was to ask for favors regarding Momo.

"Kisaragi Momo, right?" Tateyama confirmed Shintaro's suspicions. "She's such a sweet girl."

There, Shintaro mentally labeled. Phase I. The sucking-up phase, before they would ask for an autograph or a free photo or even a meeting with Momo.

Shintaro sighed. "If you want an autograph, just get straight to the point and ask."

"Eh? Is-Is that okay?" He was sure Tateyama was feigning her surprise. "It's that easy to get her autograph? Do you give one to everyone who asks?"

Shintaro only shrugged. Tateyama would figure it out eventually.

"Well, I was just curious if she was your sister because you don't really look that much alike," she laughed sheepishly. "I wasn't going to ask for an autograph, but…"

She hastily shook her head, and her hair slipped out of their hiding beneath her red scarf. "I-It's okay after all, Shintaro-kun! I… Tsubomi might be a fan, but… It just doesn't feel right if I ask that from you."

"Suit yourself, then," was all Shintaro said. But he was surprised, more than anything – he thought anyone would jump at the offer of a free autograph, even if they weren't a fan. That sort of thing could sell for a few extra bucks.

The girl really was too polite for her own good. Shintaro wondered how many times she would have sacrificed her own wishes to grant someone else's – how many times she would have said she was okay without meaning it.

"Oh! Um, Shintaro-kun?" Tateyama tried to initiate a new conversation after the bell rang for the start of the lesson. "What sort of things do girls Momo's age like?"

Shintaro looked at Tateyama for longer than he liked to admit. For probably the first time in his fifteen years, he stopped thinking. How the hell was he supposed to know what girls liked? He was a genius, but he was pretty sure this was in the EQ domain and definitely beyond his IQ.

Tateyama seemed to realize something was amiss. "I-I only want to know," she started to explain, "because Tsubomi – ah, that's my sister – Tsubomi's birthday is coming up and I don't know what to get her and she's around Momo's age so I thought you would know – ah, I'm sorry, maybe I should just-"

"Momo likes red bean-flavored cola and squid sandwiches for breakfast," Shintaro told the girl flatly. "I hope to all the gods that your sister doesn't have the same tastes."

Tateyama made a choking 'ah' sound, and Shintaro felt the corner of his lip lifting. He immediately bit his lip to stop it – knowing himself, knowing how his social skills were, it would probably be mistaken for a sneer.

While the girl tried to gather her wits, the teacher entered the room, announcing he had test papers to return. He went up and down the rows – methodically, without ceremony – and either said a brisk "good work" or said nothing at all. When he got to the back corner, Shintaro was rewarded with a dull 100 on his test and a "just as I expected."

Just as I expected.

It was that expectation. That favor Shintaro had to do for teachers.

The paper crumpled slightly in his fists.

He looked over at Tateyama and saw the bright red 56 on her paper – a score she wasn't trying to hide, like she had resigned herself to nothing but bad grades. He heard her mumble, "Barely passed again, huh…" and chuckle to herself, and he watched as she cut the paper up and slowly folded it into a decent paper crane.

She held out the origami piece in front of her when she finished, observing it with a small, proud smile. When she finally noticed Shintaro watching her, Tateyama gave him a sheepish grin – but he thought she looked relieved while making the crane, like a burden was being lifted, like she didn't have a care for superficial things like test grades. Like she was free.

Shintaro almost felt jealous.

…

Later during lunch break, Shintaro went to the rooftop with his test paper. At the time, it was like nothing mattered to him – he couldn't focus on anything but the test with the bright 100 which his hands were too eager to rip apart and see no remaining trace of. He had turned it into confetti before he even reached the fence, and he spread his arms to scatter the pieces without a care for whoever they would drop onto below.

As he watched the pieces fall, he realized how much he was like that paper. He was just a number in a multitude of humans. He might be a genius but he wasn't using any talent for the world, to make a mark on it. He was disposable, replaceable – there would be another with the same IQ, perhaps even higher, and there would have been no point in Kisaragi Shintaro existing in the world.

He clung to the fence and looked down at the ground, where everyone was like a tiny insect. He realized everyone was a tiny insect, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

"If I died right now," he muttered, "there would be someone to replace me."

Red blurred his vision, and he felt the scarf around his neck before he saw it clearly. When he turned around, Tateyama Ayano stood there, clinging to the fringes of her scarf.

"That's just silly!" she protested. "Muttering something like that is so silly."

She started to pick up the pieces of paper on the floor – that is silly, Shintaro wanted to argue, but instead he quietly took the scarf off his neck. It was unsettling that that was the first time he had seen Tateyama's bare neck.

"You're pretty special, Shintaro-kun," Tateyama smiled up at him. "It's not everyday you get to meet someone who can ace any test. And you're always so cool and calm about everything, sometimes like you have a better place to be and you know it. I'm kind of jealous. Sometimes I look at you and think to myself, ah, I wish I was like Shintaro."

Shintaro felt something then. He couldn't describe it, even with all his IQ, because things like that were in the EQ domain; but it was something so different from the times he had been called rude or snobbish or conceited.

He could almost laugh.

"You'll regret that wish," he flicked Tateyama in the forehead, and she frowned at him. "No one likes being the genius. Not even me."

Less than four months after he turned 16, Kisaragi Shintaro learnt that anyone would eventually crack under pressure.

Shintaro had reached a point in his life where he no longer cared about mundane things like the date. He didn't care what events were upcoming in the day or in the week – if he had a test, he would catch wind of it from the kids in class who would aimlessly fret over it, and all Shintaro would need to do was skim through the chapters covered to remember things without even needing notes. If there was a special holiday, there would always be someone to remind him; whether it was Enomoto complaining about her headache from the unnecessary holiday cheer, Kokonose wondering which holiday the next feast would be in, or, most commonly, Tateyama inviting him to celebrate the holiday.

He knew it was a Thursday – Enomoto had been groaning about sacrificing her almost-weekend time to study for another of Tateyama-sensei's not-quite-pop-quizzes – but Shintaro only realized the date on his way home, walking past an electronics store with news reports on their TV displays. After an enthusiastic 'good afternoon', the newscaster had mentioned it: August 15.

The anniversary of his father's death.

Shintaro figured he should at least bring flowers, if not for his own then for his mother's sake. Probably for Momo's sake, too, because that girl got less free time the more popular she became – and she had been doing a hell of a lot. Shintaro remembered seeing an article online revealing a film adaptation cast, Momo being the main lead.

He had been surprised, because Momo could not act for all the red bean colas in the world. She was too honest, too open, to pretend to be someone else.

The air in the flower shop Shintaro entered was heavy with various scents of flowers, all mixing together into one aroma that was almost acrid. It also felt somewhat damp, and Shintaro felt the urge to turn around as soon as he stepped in.

Who made up the idea that flower shops were fresh and pleasant? he grumbled to himself, and carelessly picked up a bouquet with silver wrapping. It didn't matter what flowers were in there – they were red and white – because Shintaro didn't care, and he was sure his father wouldn't have a clue what the flowers were, either. Just that they smelled less strongly than other bouquets in the shop.

When he went to the counter to pay for the bouquet, Shintaro realized his wallet wasn't in his pocket; and, upon further inspection, neither was his phone. Panic set in at first, that maybe he had been robbed in the crowds. But the more rational side of his brain finally did its job, reminding Shintaro that he commonly left his wallet and phone at school, and simply never found reasons to go back for them.

There were few others walking the path to school, and even less walking within the school. Shintaro was satisfied when he could walk through the hallway without anyone screaming and blasting his eardrums, breathe in without sickly sweet perfume travelling through his windpipe. Walking through the peaceful hallway was almost therapeutic, and Shintaro found himself muting his footsteps to maintain the peaceful silence.

It was during the silence that he heard it – one quick sob, hurriedly muffled, and much closer than he expected. He waited for another sob, without realizing he was holding his breath and that his feet had stopped moving.

His brain told him to go. To get to his classroom, only a few feet away, get his valuables and go. It told him that everyone cried, it was a common occurrence, so he should ignore what he had heard and pretend it was a figment of his imagination - and Shintaro trusted his brain, so he pushed on.

What he didn't expect was that the sobs had come from his classroom. The sliding door was ajar, and Shintaro could only see the back row: he saw a girl, with dark brown hair hidden beneath a red scarf. She was turned slightly towards the window, but she was angled enough for Shintaro to see the tears staining her cheek, almost glistening in the light of the setting sun.

Shintaro wished he hadn't seen it. Tateyama Ayano was one of the most ridiculously cheerful, unconditionally positive people he knew, and nothing but smiles looked natural on her face. Tears didn't belong there – never did, never would, never should.

Why are you crying? Shintaro wanted to ask. His brain saw it as just another riddle, another puzzle to solve. It told him to ask her, to comfort her, to at least do something about the situation. Tateyama was always the one who went around making people cheerful, saving them for even a few minutes. Maybe it was Tateyama's turn to be saved.

But it was his pride. His stupid, idiotic pride, stopping him from asking stupid questions that would get him too involved. He turned tail, hurried as far away as possible from the room where Tateyama wept alone, and he pretended to see nothing.

…

August 16 was a normal day.

He sat at his desk, expecting Tateyama to be there, early as always, greeting him and everyone else she walked by. Only silence greeted him; people ignored him, and the whole room was less rowdy than usual, almost to an uncanny extent. For a while, Shintaro ignored it and simply lost himself in his own thoughts – how would he talk to Tateyama when she came? Would he ask, or would he continue their days, mundane as they were, without acknowledging it?

Someone entered the room from the back door, sobbing their heart out, and Shintaro suddenly had a twist in his stomach. It wasn't physically possible, but Shintaro knew that if it was, what he had felt at that moment was what it would be like.

A girl from another class brought in a vase of flowers – red and white, slowly dying, like those Shintaro had picked out for his father but never ended up buying – and ceremoniously placed them on the desk beside his.

Shintaro didn't want to put the pieces together. But his brain – his stupid, idiotic, gifted brain – solved the questions for him.

He barely heard his chair rattle as he hastily stood up, stepping away from the flowers – in horror, like they carried a disease, a disease of caring and being too emotionally attached – and his feet carried him up the stairs to the rooftop.

But the memories of the last time he was there – ripping his test into confetti, having been followed by Tateyama, watching her pick up the pieces of his mess – overwhelmed him. There was plenty of fresh air, but Shintaro couldn't breathe; he felt himself choking on the memories, and when he looked down to gasp and pant and wheeze – he saw them.

Two paper cranes beside the fence. One pristinely folded with 56 written on its wing in red ink, and the other a mess of a crane, all taped up, with its wing marked with an uneven 100.

Shintaro picked up the latter, gingerly holding it by its wings. He recognized his writing on the crane's tail, and he realized it was his test – the same one he had ripped up, the same one Tateyama had picked up the pieces of.

He thought about it, about the time and painstaking effort the girl would have put into reconstructing his test and folding it into one of her cranes. Calculations started in his brain, but Shintaro shut them out. No equation could have stopped Tateyama from dying. No theorem could stop the tears that slipped down his cheek and onto the paper crane. No formula could bring the girl back.

Tateyama was gone, Tateyama had left.

And she took with her everything Shintaro had each day to look forward to.

A week later, Shintaro learnt that staying in his room all day, every day, was much better than putting up with reality.

He had learnt that Tateyama committed suicide, jumping off the very rooftop on which Shintaro had found the cranes. It had hit her family the hardest, especially since they had lost Tateyama Ayaka only a year before, on the exact same day. No one knew the reason why Tateyama jumped – but Shintaro knew it had something to do with what he had seen that afternoon in the classroom. If only he had known the answer then.

He also learnt that both Enomoto Takane and Kokonose Haruka had also disappeared on the same day. Tateyama-sensei came to class on August 16, and neither of his students were there. Both were sickly, but Kokonose only missed school whenever his illness played up. And, although Enomoto tried to argue otherwise, Shintaro knew she wouldn't miss the chance to see Kokonose at school, unless there was something serious happening.

And sometimes, Shintaro wished he didn't know these things. All he wanted was to un-learn everything, to forget them and pretend Kokonose Haruka and Enomoto Takane and Tateyama Ayano never existed.

Going to school had been tolerable with them there. At least it hadn't been so banal when Enomoto argued with him, when Tateyama became their middle-man, and even when there was no progress with Kokonose's and Enomoto's ridiculously hopeless romance.

There became no point in going back, no point in going outside. There was nothing to look forward to when Shintaro woke up each day.

So he wrote Momo a note after she had left for school a whole hour early – I'm going to stay in my room and shut myself in, tell Mom that she was wrong about there being so much to see in the world, she'll know what I'm talking about – and Shintaro stayed in front of his computer all day, almost forgetting to eat and shower and take care of himself.

But maybe it would have been better if he hadn't remembered. What was the point?

Momo returned late that night. She was in front of his room within two minutes, banging on the door, demanding for a better explanation. Shintaro wanted to tell her that he would give her an explanation if he had one, but he kept scrolling through his files and ignored her like he ignored everything he shouldn't have ignored. Eventually, Momo gave up, telling him that she would be right outside if he needed anything or anyone, and she left, just like everyone Shintaro ever cared about.

The clock kept tick-tock-ticking, reminding him of his life wasting away. And at that point, Shintaro learnt that he really didn't care anymore.

Halfway through his 16th year, Shintaro learnt that people with nothing productive to do were getting smarter. He received an email, and as soon as he opened it, a cyber girl was installed and embedded in his computer system.

The cyber girl, who introduced herself as Ene, talked and acted like a real girl. If Shintaro ignored her legs that dissolved into pixels, he would've thought he was talking to an actual human - except easier, because Ene said what she meant and meant what she said.

The artificial intelligence that people were playing around with somewhat amazed Shintaro.

He deleted Ene a week later, but she came back the next time he went online. Ene was clever - maybe too clever. Too manipulative. Although her straightforwardness was something Shintaro appreciated, Ene was sometimes annoying and too noisy, when all he really wanted was silence to wallow in.

At 18 years old, Kisaragi Shintaro learnt of a repeating tragedy.

He tried to delete Ene again, as he had done so many times before. She always came back soon after anyway, invigorated and annoying as ever. It was a cycle that Shintaro had learnt to get used to.

Yet, there he was with an Ene-free desktop. He could browse the Internet without her judgments, write a song without worrying of leaving it unsaved. He was free, so to speak.

He was free, but he felt oddly lonely. He hadn't felt truly lonely since he was sixteen, staring at the desk next to his in class, empty save for the vase of slowly dying flowers that did no justice to the girl they were for. It was a strange feeling, to be lonely again.

Shintaro was slowly learning to get used to Ene. He was starting to appreciate her company when the only other people he talked to were online friends he had never met face-to-face. He really didn't mind her too much. Really. It was just taking him time.

It was just taking him time, so why? Why wasn't Ene coming back? Shintaro thought it was almost like betrayal.

How many times? How many times had people left him, and taken with them the things he cherished? How many times had he been left with nothing to live for?

Too many, he thought as he reached in his drawer for scissors. Too many, far too many.

Maybe he should just join them. There was nothing tying him down to the world anymore. Only his mother, who was probably too ill to even start caring about other people, and Momo - but even Momo had a busy life of her own and checked on him about as much as she was at school, which wasn't much at all.

He could join them. He could see Ene again, if she went to a type of cyber heaven. He could see his father again – his face with the stubble that never seemed to disappear, instead of the back of his head through a rearview mirror. He could see Ayano and her bright smile again - the real one, not the smile permanently clinging to his memories.

Shintaro didn't see any cons to outweigh the pros. Getting to see again the people he had lost, the people he had to look forward to seeing each day, the people he had to live for - he would prefer that to the dreary days his life had so quickly become.

He stared at the sharp blades of the scissors, like staring down the barrel of a gun, a thousand and two thoughts running through his mind, and roamed his eyes over the red handles.

"Red is the color of heroes," he whispered. "What did it feel like when you fell, Ayano? Did you feel like a hero? Did you?

"Because you aren't," he was starting to yell now, feeling the rasp and the burn in his throat. But there was no one to hear it. "What kind of hero leaves people behind? What kind? You aren't a hero, Ayano! You aren't, you aren't, you aren't."

He pulled his hands back, pulled the scissors away, and in one swift move, jabbed the blade straight into his neck. Felt it pierce muscle and arteries and veins. Just as quickly, he yanked the blade out, and the burning spread from his neck and rushed to his brain, to the rest of his body.

He had just enough time to look down at the spray of blood before him, the red painting his plain bed and plain wooden floors. He briefly thought about Momo, how she would react when (if) she saw him – would she call an ambulance, or would she panic and become very out-of-it like she did six years ago? The question stayed with him, until his room – the world, his own world for two years – spun far too fast and he fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling one last time.

23/11/14: Salutations! For reaching the end! Lemme give you a high-five.

I've been working on this since August/September I think, and I enjoyed writing it in between planning College Days probably a little too much, haha. I'm really curious to know if I got Shintaro's characterization right, though – I've been finding it easier to write from his pov, so maybe I've just been getting it wrong this whole time (otherwise, send help maybe, because I might turn hikineet one of these days).

So yeah thanks for reading, and please drop a review if you have time!