"So what's the point?" she asked. "If there's no meaning, no purpose, no reason to keep going... what's the point?"
"There is no meaning to anything." Shuji picked up the sake bottle, looked at it, and set it down again. "We're born without asking to be, we suffer for decades, and then we die. And for what? Less than nothing. The universe doesn't care. Humanity won't remember anything, nothing will remember humanity. Eventually we'll all perish in the heat death of the universe and somehow new life will sprout."
"Did you kill yourself?"
He laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound. "I did, but not soon enough. Because some part of me, some stupid, stubborn part, kept hoping. Kept thinking that maybe, just maybe, there was something worth staying for. A good woman. A good line of poetry." He shook his head. "It was all absurd, but it was easier to believe in nonsense than it was the truth."
"And what's the truth for me?"
He looked at her. Really looked at her, for the first time since she'd arrived.
"You already know," he said quietly. "You've known for years."
The void was very still.
"You want to die," Shuji continued. "But you also want to live. You want someone to see you, really see you, and tell you that you matter. You want to be normal. You want all these impossible, contradictory things, and you hate yourself for wanting them, because you know you'll never have them."
Kira's throat tightened.
"That's not it."
"It is." His voice was flat. Final. "I know because I was the same. I wanted to be a great writer. I wanted to be loved. My sense of humanity was destroyed to the point where I couldn't discern people's faces, I couldn't discern their voices unless it was a woman I could manipulate to sleep with."
"You're not helping."
"I never said I was going to help you." He picked up the sake bottle again, poured the last of it into the cup. "There's no escape from yourself, I'm just telling you what you already know, I can't provide any insight into your wellbeing, after all mine is already gone."
The words hung in the air between them.
Kira stared at him. At his tired eyes. His rumpled kimono. His bare feet. He looked like a man who had given up a long time ago. His eyes, an empty husk except for the tiny essence of mana keeping him bound to this mortal realm.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"No." Shuji drank the sake. "It's supposed to make you feel worse. Because suffering is the only thing that is proof that you exist."
"That's stupid."
"Yep." He set down the empty cup.
Kira felt something shift in her chest. Not hope. Not peace. Something smaller. Something almost like... recognition.
"You're a clown," she said.
"Obviously." He spread his hands. "What else would I be? I spent my whole life trying to die and failing. That's the funniest thing I can imagine. A man trying to die, the thing that so many people are trying to avoid daily, yet he couldn't even lose." He smiled. "It's almost like the Primordials are laughing at me. Maybe it was. Maybe it still is."
"Maybe Lady Bleu really is laughing at both of us."
"Probably." He tilted his head. "But here's the thing about jokes, Kira. They're only funny if someone's there to hear them. A joke told to an empty room isn't a joke. It's just... noise."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying..." He paused. His expression shifted, became something almost comical. "Since there's no meaning to anything, why even focus on it in the first place? If it's so hard for you then why embrace it? There's no need to take things seriously. Run from it, forget it. There's no real reason for you to get too deep into it."
Kira stared at him.
"Really?"
The void was quiet.
The book sat between them, its pages still. The empty sake bottle gleamed in the non-light. Shuji looked at her with those tired, knowing eyes, and Kira felt something crack inside her chest.
"I don't want to die," she whispered.
Black Scene.
"I just want the pain to stop."
Black Scene.
"I want to be normal. I want to be happy. I want to wake up and not feel terrible."
Black Scene.
She was crying again. She didn't know when it had started. The tears were hot on her cheeks, and her breath came in ragged gasps, and her whole body shook with the force of it.
"But I can't," she choked out. "I can't be normal. I can't be happy. And nothing I do will ever fix it."
Shuji was quiet for a long moment.
"No," he said finally.
"Then what's the point?"
"There isn't one." He stood, brushing off his kimono. "Forget, run away from it."
"And if I can't?"
"Then you can't." He shrugged. "No one can force you to keep existing. It's your choice. It's always been your choice. That's the only real freedom any of us have is the freedom to stop."
He turned away.
"But before you make that choice," he said over his shoulder, "ask yourself one thing."
"What?"
"Who's going to feed the cat?"
Kira blinked. "What cat?"
He pointed at her feet. "The cat right beside you."
There sat a small tabby, rubbing its soft fur against her shin.
"It depends on you to live, would you be so cruel to let it die?"
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
"I don't know."
"Think about it." He began to walk away, his footsteps silent on the void-floor. "Think about the people who would miss you, even if you don't believe they would. Think about all the small, stupid reasons to keep going. And then, when you've thought about all of them, ask yourself if you still want to stop."
He paused.
"What do you like?"
"Books."
"We really are similar aren't we? Like soulmates."
"....."
"Don't you want to keep reading? There are millions of books you haven't even touched. Don't you want to experience them?"
He smiled, a fake smile plastered half hazardly onto his face.
"If you really, truly want to end it, then do it properly. Don't half-ass it like I did. Make it count."
He vanished into the void.
Kira stood alone in the endless yellow dark. The book sat at her feet, its pages still. The empty sake bottle gleamed beside it. She looked at them for a long time.
Then she bent down and picked up the book.
The cover was blank now. No title. No author. Just worn leather and yellowed pages and the faint smell of old paper. She opened it to the first page.
'I have been sickly ever since I was a child and have frequently been confined to bed. How often as I lay there I used to think what uninspired decorations sheets and pillow cases make. It wasn't until I was about twenty that I realized that they actually served a practical purpose, and this revelation of human dullness stirred dark depression in me.'
She turned the page.
[Where have I read this before?]
'This was how I happened to invent my clowning. It was the last quest for love I was to direct at human beings. Although I had a mortal dread of human beings I seemed quite unable to renounce their society. I managed to maintain on the surface a smile which never deserted my lips; this was the accommodation I offered to others, a most precarious achievement performed by me only at the cost of excruciating efforts within.'
Another page.
'I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed. I feigned an innocent optimism; I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric. I thought, "As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn't matter how, I'll be all right. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won't mind it too much if I remain outside their lives'
She closed the book.
[I understand who you are now, I remember this book. I know your name]
The void was fading. The yellow dark was lightening, becoming gray, becoming white, becoming the familiar blur of her bedroom ceiling. The fan spun. The tray of food sat outside her door, untouched.
Kira lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, the book clutched to her chest.
It was real. She could feel its weight, its warmth, the faint thrum of mana that pulsed through its pages. A gift. Or a curse. Or just... something to hold onto.
She sat up.
Her body protested. Her muscles ached. Her head spun. But she sat up anyway, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, planting her feet on the cold floor.
She stood.
The book was on her bed. She picked it up, held it to her chest, felt its warmth seep into her skin.
"I don't know if I can keep going," she whispered.
The book didn't answer.
"I want to kill myself."
She walked to the door. Unlocked it. Opened it.
The tray was still there. The food was cold. The tea was cold. The napkin was still folded. She picked it up, unfolded it, read the words Hoshimi had written.
'Eat something'
Kira stared at the words for a long time.
"I want to run away from everything."
Then she picked up the tray, carried it back into her room, and ate.