There was a twitch on the edge of his spine that wouldn't go away.
He would shift and rub his back against his seat, and it would just never go away.
He gave up, eventually. There was no point to it.
----
"Hiro…"
Nothing. A few clicks of the mouse.
"I brought you your lunch." Ando extended a greasy, blank white bag towards him.
A slight inclination of the head. He never turned from his computer screen.
Ando bit his lip, then carefully set the lunch down on the desk, with all of the other un-touched bags.
A few moments passed.
"Hiro… they're telling me you're putting in too much overtime."
Silence.
"Did you hear me? Our boss thinks you're putting in too much overtime." Shouldn't that tell him something?
Click. A new window popped up.
"Hiro… when was the last time you slept?"
"A couple days ago," he murmured, and opened another window.
"You should go home."
He said nothing.
----
Restless nights, tossing and turning, nightmares of apocalypses and men lying underground screaming and screaming, the screams filling him and becoming one with him, until the two were inseparable and he was underground as well, screaming and screaming.
He would wake up somewhere else, in the kitchen, in a cold sweat on the floor.
----
Hiro was asleep at his desk, mumbling strings of words incoherently, his head thrashing across the keyboard.
Ando ran over, shaking him awake. "Hiro? Hiro!"
Hiro threw up his arm, knocking him backwards into the filing cabinet.
He lifted his head, blinked, and stared at Ando, confused. "A-Ando?"
Ando got up and rubbed his back, wincing. "What was that for?"
"I thought you were someone else," he muttered, and immediately went back to work.
----
"I'm worried about Hiro, sir."
"Aren't we all? Get back to your desk."
"I don't think he should still be working here in this condition. Can't someone tell him to… I don't know… take a vacation?"
"Do you think I haven't tried? Boy refuses to budge from his seat. There's nothing I can do. Sorry."
He glared. "You just like having your own personal robot."
"How dare you speak to me this way?! Now get back to your desk, or you're fired! Do you hear me?"
Ando shook his head and grabbed his coat.
----
It had all become a sort of vague blur to him - the people he saw, just random faces that didn't matter and all he could see were green fields and his face, smiling before any of this had happened.
----
"Do you want a ride home, Hiro?"
A small shake of the head, and eyes still fixed on a glowing computer screen.
"I've quit."
No reaction. Nothing. Just another click.
"Do you want me to get you some dinner?"
His shoulders raised, small and almost imperceptible.
"Okay." He gazed at him for another few minutes, then left.
----
Numb. Just… numb. Everywhere. Always. It had no foreseeable end, anything, nothing, everywhere.
He could hear him, from this far away, screaming for him over and over. Like he was right next to him, yelling in his ear, begging to be let go and that he would never do anything bad again, please, carp.
Numb.
----
Desperate measures were called for.
Ando lifted Hiro up by the arms and started dragging him out of the office.
There was no resistance.
Somehow, that scared him the most.
----
He was being pulled down under - Kensei, Adam, whatever his name was - was pulling him down, so they could rot together. Or so he could rot. Adam Kensei would never rot, never, would be in that box forever because Hiro had put him there.
He didn't find himself minding so much, rotting underground. It was what he deserved.
----
"Eat this."
A blank expression, nothing else. They were terrifying, his eyes - glazed over and empty and lifeless.
"Hiro."
Ando took a deep breath, forced Hiro's mouth open, and shoved the food inside. "Swallow it."
He did.
Ando pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a shuddering sigh of relief.
----
"Tell me, carp," Adam Kensei said, turned on his side, cupping his face in one hand. "What exactly were you planning to do after trapping me in this box for all of eternity?"
He said nothing, just stared up at the satin lining.
----
The water was drunk, dinner had been eaten, and Hiro was lying on the couch, eyes listlessly watching the TV.
Ando watched him, watched the light from the screen illuminate his face - blue, white, words written across his cheek - and bit his knuckles so hard he was surprised that he didn't break any bone.
"Ando," Hiro suddenly said, not taking his gaze off the T.V.
Ando jumped slightly. "Hmm?"
"I want to go out."
"O-okay."
----
He swung down cup after cup of sake, the numbness replaced with a different kind of numbness, a better kind, one that made it easier to forget and easier to just lose himself in the air and the people shoving him from all sides.
The irony didn't escape him.
----
"You've had enough," Ando said firmly. Maybe Hiro had been better off staying at the office 24/7.
"No," he said, and finished another cup.
"You can't have any more," he insisted, yanking Hiro's arm. "You'll kill yourself."
He didn't have to be a mind-reader to be able to tell that that was exactly what Hiro had in mind.
"We're getting you out of here," he said, and dragged Hiro out of the bar. This time there was some mild resistance, although nothing that would have really stopped him.
At least they were making some progress there.
----
"Nothing like a good old pint, eh, Hiro?" Adam Kensei said, taking out his canteen and sipping some himself. "Makes it easier to forget."
He said nothing.
"You're pathetic, you know. A pathetic little weakling. Just like I was, before you came along."
He fought back the sobs that threatened to overcome him.
----
When Ando woke up the next morning, Hiro was still lying on the couch, eyes wide open, fingers clutched onto the sheets.
"Did you sleep?"
He shook his head.
"Are you tired?"
"No."
"You want to go out later? But not to a bar this time."
"Okay."
----
Fish swam in clear cages, circling around rocks and around each other.
"I always thought it was funny," an American tourist said next to him, "how 'carp' and 'love' are the same word in Japanese. 'Koi'. Isn't that funny, Martin?"
"Whatever you say, dear," the man holding her hand said.
Hiro felt himself go cold.
----
The next thing he knew, Hiro wasn't walking next to him.
"Hiro?" Ando whipped his head around, searching over the tops of heads.
He was nowhere to be seen. Ando felt a lump of panic in his throat. "Hiro!"
----
A whirlwind of lights and music that surrounded his ears, a table filled with empty, bottomless cups and Adam Kensei sitting across from him, still in the coffin.
"Having fun, carp?" he asked dryly. "Having fun out here in the surface world, are you? Won't even share your sake with me, I bet. You can lock me in a box, but you can't spare a fellow a drink."
"You're not real," he mumbled. "You're just - "
"A figment of your imagination, yes. But why should that make me any less real?" A pause. "I did love you, once."
Hiro swallowed.
"Carp. Koi."
"Shut up," he growled, and slammed his cup on the table. He wobbily stood up and headed out the door.
"You can't run away from this, carp!" Adam Kensei yelled after him. "You can't run away from me!"
He kept walking.
----
He was walking down the street when he saw him.
"Hiro?!" He sprinted over and knelt down where Hiro was lying in front of an alleyway. "Hiro! Can you hear me?"
A garbled reply, and an attempt to stand up. Ando helped him, grabbing him underneath the elbows.
"Hiro, you have to stop this," Ando implored him. "We can help you get better. You'll die if you keep living like this. I can't stand seeing you this way. You need to come with me, you need to - "
Hiro punched him in the face.
"The only thing I need," he said, staring down at Ando's unconscious form, "is another drink."
And he felt his brain rip at the seams.