#gachabits

Alive… but could it even be called that? He still breathed, lungs expanding, expelling air, a predictable rhythm, if he placed a hand to his breast his heart could still be felt to beat; thump-thump thump-thump, he was conscious and aware. But it was just a pretty deception to guise the truth.

And what a masterful lie it was. So real and convincing down to the hunger pangs he could still feel when he failed to bother with the food still laying about or how he could slip deep into a realm of sleep and dreams so realistic he would have never known otherwise. The illusion was both fragile as a slip of glass and inescapable, an unyeilding prison that fractured into blocky pixels and phased in and out of stability as time wore on. A program. A game. A colorful playground crafted from data and thought that housed all that remained of Izuru Kamukura.

He wasn't alive, only his mind lived on. A ghost within the machine.

It was because of him. That dull, cowardly, stubborn brat who had the audacity to steal the body he'd come to call his own and leave the superior half, the embodiment of hope itself, behind. To rot. His fate had been sealed, tragic, left him wallowing in despair, but yet upon that dramatic escape Kamukura had been the one to be unceremoniously shoved from his rightful place in the waking world and left, thrown aside like rubbish. Here.

He hated him for it. …though not at first. At first, as the illusion of a horribly pieced together macabre of Hope's Peak faded and he awoke on a white sand beach, the crafted Golden Child had been apathetic. Nothing all too wonderful awaited those who were gifted the ability to return to their physical bodies and he didn't care. What difference did his failure… failure to reclaim what had been his, make in the end? Of course. He didn't care, would never care, had never cared, it didn't phase him in the slightest.

But how laughably quick that mask had begun to chip and, instead, he grew angry. So. Angry. How dare they. How could he be the one abandoned as a speck of variability on this hideous chain of islands while the talentless walked among the others, recovering, comforting, looking towards a future where there could actually… feasibly… be hope. Feh. That was another concept he found pitiful at best, at first. Now the notion that that light winked in the darkness, forever out of his reach but a beautiful possibility for them, hurt. It hurt, being abandoned, and so the immovable figure of humanity's hope slipped into genuine despair. Angry, upset, and hollow.

…

   …

      …

It wasn't until later that he found out he had, company. Her.

Fully convinced that the artificial realm he now wandered was a barren paradise the first signs that she remained after all others had departed were… surprising. Pondering it for only a short while slid the puzzle pieces together, however. A benevolent observer, crafted of 0's and 1's as much as the venue itself, it actually wasn't miraculous that she could still exist within the digital walls. And the added presence had no positive affects on Kamukura's mood. That was for sure.

If a lingering rage, smoldering alike hot coals, directed towards him then the spark of pure rage that twisted his illusionary heart at first sight was blinding. It was her fault. All. Her. Fault. Success had sat alight on his fingers, ready to be seized as he withered under the weight of that choice and then… she may as well have snatched it from between them.

She inspired the clueless hero, brought hope, convinced with sugary sweet and comforting words that the possibility of triumphing over the other presence vying for control was real. A program. A purely artificial, fictional, fragile construct had been the one to steal it all away and leave Kamukura's last efforts shattered under his renewed determination. She was the reason he was like this, now. Destitute, weak, barely existing and certainly not alive.

He loathed her.

Maybe tracking her down, cornering her, and reveling in the pain he knew could still be inflicted in this flawless illusion, even on such a waste of even data, would soothe the inferno for a time. But for at least now she only appeared in glimpses, a flash of pale pink around a corner, a tentative face peeking between the crack of a door, and the dark haired male couldn't even expend the effort to try and get closer. He only walked with an ambling and unsteady gait from place to place at best, on the days when he didn't just sit and stare. 

…

   …

      …

What would happen if he died?

Hah. When did he become so pathetic? A twisted, woeful, wretch. Added to it that he had begun to get the feeling those fleeting glances he caught from her shone with worry, actually… concerned for the catastrophic spiral he tumbled down to ultimately drown in the depths below. And even the fury he felt at that thought seemed washed out and dull and rather than act he buried his face in his knees. Just go away.

But eventually, inevitably, she would not be perturbed enough by his silent plea to do so. It was on the beach with soft fake sand beneath his palms and a false sunset painting the clouds that she appeared to him for more than a peripheral glance. He turned his head towards where footsteps whispered across the sand and there she stood just a few feet away; fingers absent of any gaming device, soft pink locks that shifted in the sea breeze, and so… pristine. Untouched from the memories that lingered from the moments crossing over with him while the thing that faced her, seated, in return was likely hollow-eyed and thoroughly bedraggled. 

Sunken eyes glared in silent loathing and his muscles shivered with the temptation to lurch for her with murder etched in his snarl. But ultimately Kamukura didn't move. A pause overtook and the false world revolved, spinning further out this heavy silence where soft lavender met carmine and no one dared speak, dared breathe. What feeble flecks of anger he still nursed would not wink out just yet but he was becoming resigned to the idea… the fact that it was far from a force anymore. Why would she even fear him. Why was she even, looking at him. Goawaygoawayplease.

When he focused again on her face, there was a smile. A soft, feather light curve of lips that shone with the gentle glow of the setting sun over the waves. Not only that, but she was… crying?

Wetness tracked down those peachy cheeks with a crystalline gleam and the male recoiled in shock. No. Stop. He hated her./ He… hurt.

"I'm… sorry," Having turned his face away from the girl's silent tears, unable to grapple with the sight, Kamukura's head was quick to snap back towards the source of those two, hardly whispered words. But she was gone.

…

   …

      …

As pitiful and small as he had become, somehow he seemed to have scared her off. Meeting that fact with a pained twist of his features he would have gladly relinquished his grip on the slippery slope that had been escorting him down, down but the drive to even act on a final wish for nothingness… hard to come by. How did the simulation itself not recoil from him in disgust? Fragment into skipping, monochromatic pixels beneath his feet and drop the shell of a mind into whatever void surrounded its coded barriers. He spent most of his time in these dark reveries now, and went without even a whisper of her for, days? It was difficult to tell.

After a considerable time spent sleepless it suddenly became easier to blot out some of the endless time with unconsciousness. He wouldn't even tread near their cabins, no, so most of his… somewhat peaceful dozes happened propped upright in a chair or seated, back against the side of a building. Today the milky light of dawn only pressed down on Kamukura's mind like a stifling blanket of cotton and so he turned his head, leaning up against the monolith of stone beasts that had reappeared on the first island, and closed his eyes.

A past statement needed to be amended, regarding sleep. The dreams were… wrong. He was never able to doze without them dancing a chaotic ballet behind his eyelids and they were always terribly, undeniably, real. So vivid and lucid and alike the false world he walked yet he never could mistake one from the other. Strange, when the supposed 'waking' world was built on nothing more than thought itself. …tangents tangents.

The desolate boy awoke to stars, winking in the inky blackness above with a cold and far away light. Hours and hours spent under the spell of dreams, ah he felt more groggy than his previous waking state, and along with the dramatically different skyline squiggles of question marks popped in his mind at the distinct weight leaning onto his side. Weight, warmth, and delicate puffs of breath against the hollow of his throat. 

…?

Letting the weight of his skull topple his head sidelong Kamukura's foggy eyes focused. It was her.

Breath stilling in his lungs, he froze, at a loss of how to react. Why would she… a myriad of questions could form from those three words but he settled on none. Leaving the fragment to empty space. He simply released a slow breath and observed, silently, as even that slight bit of stirring seemed to be enough to rouse the girl at his side. In a painfully slow motion pale lids tracked by the blue tinge of veins flickered and lifted to display the violet pools cradled beneath. She seemed tentative, questioning, compared to the muted shock Kamukura had reacted with at first glimpse and when he gave no reaction besides continuing to stare the smile he'd beheld days before returned.

She said nothing and before long a distressed note, like a wounded animal, pried from his throat to muffle as he dropped his head into the crook of her neck. It hurt… it hurt.

Breathing burned, every heartbeat ached, and the pain of simply existing without a soul to even speak his name had long since become unbearable. The pressure of soft lips against his forehead eased it all, at least for the moment, and he reacted with only dull surprise to the sensation of moisture being brushed tenderly from his cheeks. Huh, when had he started to cry?

…

   …

      …

"Do you hate me?"

"…no."

"Are you unhappy, being here?"

"…"

"…"

"I was. But… I forget what it is I missed so much. When the sky here is so blue."

"…I am sorry, you know."