"Get out of our way!"
"It would have all been better if you didn't exist"
The voices continued to swarm around his head, their soft whispers growing into blood curdling screams that overlapped each other until he could hardly make out what each of the child-like voices were trying to say. It's only been a week. Only seven days since the incident happened, since she left to go back to her apartment but he felt like it's been years. The voices, they hadn't stopped at all since he and Shiori reunited the Kotori Obake with her long lost son, in fact they seemed to grow louder each passing day, swarming around inside of his skull like restless bees.
At first he thought that sleep would quell the voices and cause them to cease their constant screeching but whenever he fell into the deep abyss of welcomed sleep he was instead plunged into a world full of the most vivid nightmares that always made him bolt up from bed, his body shaking as sweat dripped from his forehead and he tried to take in raspy breaths and enjoy the thirty seconds of silence before the children know he's awake again and come to wail and screech again.
Oh how he missed her. He wishes to see her again, at least for just a second but he knows that there is no way that he can ever do that again and when he thinks about this the overwhelming loneliness seems to nearly suffocate him.
"Suga-san…", Sakuma said one day as she approached the dazed man speaking so low that Suga almost couldn't hear her over the voices. The use of his actual name from Sakuma who usually addressed him as 'Manager' surprised him. He turned around from the shelf of books he was looking at but not actually paying attention to and looked at the young girl with a questioning look.
"Are you ok?", She asks hesitantly. Suga digs into his pocket and shuffles through the stack of memos until he finds the right one and shows it to her.
" Yes."
She looks at the memo for a few seconds and back at Suga with a suspicious stare. She just shrugs it off, obviously not convinced but not wanting to poke further in. She picks up the book she was reading and occasionally looks up to see the manager vacantly looking at the same shelf or even sometimes a wall. He wasn't alright at all and it was painfully obvious.
The next day Officer Mochizuki stops by, apparently just dropping off a book that Sakuma had accidentally took home with her yesterday. Suga tiredly pulled out a 'Thank You' memo and put the book back in it's rightful place on a shelf, expecting the officer to then leave but the officer just cleared his throat and spoke.
"Suga-kun" The officer said as he tried to get the attention of the tall man but Suga didn't respond as he stared vacantly at the books on the shelf. The voices were so loud today that it was hard for him to hear the noises around him. The officer slowly walks to the dazed man and taps him lightly on his shoulder.
The other seems to snap awake at the sudden and unexpected contact. He looks over to Mochizuki and tries with all his energy to muster a questioning glance.
"Suga….are you ok?", The officer asks and he takes in the dreadful appearance that Suga has. He looked as if he hasn't slept for days. Sure it was normal to see the manager with some bags under his eyes but it wasn't normal for his eye whites to be tinted with red. The already pale man seemed to be even paler which caused him to look a sickly grey and his sweater he usually always wears seemed to hang loosely on him like he had not been eating. The officer realized that Sakuma was right about what she told him yesterday. Suga didn't look good at all.
Suga tired of the question and too tired to look for the right memo nodded his head and walked as quick as he could out of the room,the voices seeming to follow him as he did and unbeknownst of him so did the worried gaze of the officer.
Sakuma and Mochizuki visited much more often after that much go Suga's dismay. He really wanted to enjoy their company but he couldn't concentrate on their words with the voices clamouring around so he often took a while to respond which would trigger them to ask more questions.
He hated this routine. He hated waking up out of a nightmare to the voices and he hated how he felt like throwing up whenever he swallowed something, he hated having to reassure the two same visitors that everything was ok while the voices laughed at his idiocy, he hated being scared to go to sleep due to the everlasting nightmares, he hated almost believing what the voices say but most of all he hated that he couldn't see her. He wished more than anything that he could see her.
He cries, sobs uncontrollably at the thought that he'll be trapped here forever with the voices but he knows that he has to or else they'll escape and he can't let that happen, he wouldn't. He promised Shiori that he would stay here forever and he intended to keep that promise. He thinks about going into the forest to eliminate the corrupt spirits but there's far to many overcrowding the entrance, begging him to get out of the way with cruel words. So be would always turn around, telling himself that there's always tomorrow and he had to use his sword wisely now that he couldn't access his glowstone cave.
So here Suga is doomed to stay with the nightmares, the voices, and the bittersweet memories of the past and sometimes he can't help but think that it would have all been better if he didn't exsist.