There was a loud scream.

Whose voice was that? That's right, it was his. It just hurt. Everything hurt, his eye, his shoulder, his brain. The hopelessness, the despair, his uselessness now, the lack of a repeat. Was he that weak? He couldn't take it and so he tilted his head back as the mysterious assailant perched on his shoulder, and he scream in desperation, in sadness, in forgetting others, without caring for others, because he hurt so much. As debris tumbled around him, the last thing he could hear, apart from the noise of Collapse, was a moan of pain, and all was dark and silent.


He awakened with a start. Where was he? Sunlight entered the room, happily ignorant of his torrential heart. It was the hospital. Just like the previous time. The atmosphere, though brightened by the sun, was subdued. A nurse gasped at his awakening and murmured something to a doctor. The doctor shook his head and sighed as he pronounced his right eye's prognosis. It was lost, he said, the wound was rather deep and a complication in the optical nerve caused the operation to be unsuccessful. He quietly accepted the loss, and asked the doctor, did his siblings visit, for the bedside table was devoid of caring goods, and the room smelt awfully sterile. The doctor had a grim face, turning to the nurse, she said no. He wondered why.

The day after his awakening, two people visited him. It was his siblings. Ayumi, pouting and Shun,
depressed and grim. Ayumi said for some reason Shun refused to let her visit and at that point Shun inhaled deeply and told her that Shun-oniisan and Yuu-oniisan needed to talk. Still pouting, she left a bottle of pizza sauce, full and red, and wished him well. It was only then, somehow, that the room's temperature suddenly dropped and he was on a receiving end of a glare, one from his brother.

"What were you thinking, using Collapse like that?" He asked angrily. Blank grey eyes reflected brown.

"I...I...don't kn-"

"He died. Kumagami died because of your folly! He died protecting Tomori!" Color paled from his face, he did something horribly wrong. There is no repeat. Time leap was lost. He leaped to save Ayumi and Kumagami was taken as payment. He activated Collapse selfishly and someone died as a result. His brother's best friend, if he had to believe his story from the previous timeline. He killed him right? He endangered Tomori too. Why...

"Yuu!" His brother shook him roughly, there was no one in the room but the two of them. Something wet dripped from his face, one drop fell and stained the blanket dark, and soon numerous drops, some from himself, some from Shun, stained the blanket, coloring it grey.

"I can't! I can't be you, I can't save Ayumi right, I can't time leap anymore! Everything stays as it is now! I was selfish! I...I'm so sorry." He exclaimed, tears flowing wildly from one eye. His hair glowed light blue unconsciously and Shun hugged him, kissed him on the head like he did when he forgot him. Cracks on the wall stopped growing, when he realized what he had done, he wanted cry even more. He was a monster, wasn't he? A greedy monster who stole people's hopes and treated them as his own, before destroying all of them. Hurting himself, hurting others. Shun gripped him tightly and whispered softly into his ears, how he was sorry too, for his previous self who told him to go, for his lack of insight.

He couldn't understand how his brother endured all those loops, when he couldn't even survive one. It didn't matter now did it? Not when there will never be more, not when, he had to cope with the facts running through his head, that he was a monster, and Kumagami died due to him. He can't tell Shun these things, because he will not understand, just like how he doesn't understand his perseverance, he knows Shun will tell him to let things go, that he isn't a monster, when his own mind registers those sweet words as lies. Shun wouldn't forgive him so quickly, the days he spent asleep visitor-less tells him that.

The two boys in the hospital room, they could never understand one another, one doesn't care and the other doesn't know. They are both damaged, one because of selfishness and the other because of selflessness, complete opposites yet birds of a feather. There will be no perfect end, but they will have to cope, because time may heal wounds, now that it has harmed them.


Written in an hour or so, after Charlotte Episode 11 (Raw) aired.