WolfingDownStars

compared to the noise of the day, the stone world nights remain quiet; no one was working or rushing, everyone was asleep, mostly everyone.

senku was still up. his eyes were drilled onto the moon. it's nothing particular for him, for him whose first love was the moon. he is recounting his life back then. his mind was stuck ruminating on how things were in the past. the way his room was arranged, the things he used to watch, the games he would play.

he tried not to think of his dad, so he focused on other silly things.

he remembered something instead.

you.

never in the same reality as him.

because he is real. because you are fictional.

you're a character from a franchise. you're like doraemon or momotaro, not real.

it's quite funny that he ended up being one of those crazy fans. it started because your franchise did a collaboration with doraemon, and he happened to find a little stand of you and doraemon.

what was great doraemon doing with you? so he started digging. you liked doraemon —fiction within fiction is so lovely—, you liked science, you were so interesting. he watched the show, he played the games, and he slowly became a fan. first collecting just the doraemon collab, then indulging into buying merch where it was just you.

little keychains, can-badges, stands, figures, trading cards.

and not just that, people around him would gift him merch too.

he wasn't too obvious with his fanaticism. but people noticed.

so whenever he went, wherever he looked, you were there. because his keys had a keychain of you. his school bag had a little badge, his room had you sprouting wherever there was space. and if that wasn't enough, the algorithm of his phone knew all too well to feed him you. and if somehow he had no keys, no bag, no phone, and wasn't home, there would be some ad of the franchise of you winking directly to his heart.

he pinched the bridge of his nose. the chirping of nature and the rustling of leaves with the wind grounded him back to the life he was with. he sighed.

people would ask his type all the time. was it crazy that his answer would simply be you? someone like you, that's it. gosh, had the universe put you two together in the same reality, it would have been an unstoppable force. it didn't dawn on him until other characters had interactions with you that other fans would point as hinting at romance and him getting kinda jealous.

it wasn't like it gnawed at his mind to the point of misery. but it was nice to imagine it. him and you holding hands and sharing a milkshake and talking about science and worshipping doraemon.

before he could forget all together what you looked like —if that was even possible— he sketched a few drawings on paper, trying his best to remember your features. at what angle your eyelids raised and dropped. the arch of your lips. your nose. every strand of hair.

it wasn't much.

for the following days, he walked around with a photocard-size drawing of you in his pocket. whenever he had a chance, he looked at it. it almost encouraged him.

but then it fell out of his pocket.

and he was too ashamed to ask if anyone had seen it.

he promised he would draw another small portrait of you to carry around but he got busy.

and he didn't remember about it until yuzuriha knocked on his door.

"hey senku, i think i found this," she extended the drawing with one hand after senku opened the door.

"oh... how did you know it was mine?"

"it's the exact force you use for sketching with a pencil," she pointed out, technical. "taiju found it."

"taiju knows how i grip a pencil?"

"no, but he knows you like them," yuzuriha shrugged referring to you. "he wasn't sure though, so he asked me if i thought the drawing was yours."

"oh."

well, whatever.

senku received his sketch back, it was almost pristine. okay.

but yuzuriha didn't leave.

"i made you something," she said. the hand that was behind her back all the time suddenly came to the front, and she was holding a plushie of you, "figured you missed seeing them."

the smile that bloomed almost immediately gave it all away. he wanted to thank yuzuriha and fix all her problems, and grab the plushie and squeeze it in his arms so hard that maybe you'd become real. instead, he mumbled a half-hearted "you didn't have to."

yuzuriha knew though. of course she knew by then. she nodded and left.

she had probably based the plushie on the one he had on his room back then. the one byakuya had given him. he smiled and sat down with it, grabbing its soft hands and putting them up and down interchangeably. a big sigh left him.

at least he still had you. even if technically every other trace of your existence had also vanished, he kept you alive in his memory too, and he'd revive you too.