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Title: Twenty-Five Sentences: Enomoto Takane/Ene
Author: NinthFeather
Rating: T
Pairings: HaruTaka, mild implications of ShinEne, mention of ShinAya
Characters: Enomoto Takane/Ene, Kokonose Haruka/Konoha, Tateyama Kenjirou, Kisaragi Shintarou
Summary: Twenty-five sentence-long drabbles about Enomoto Takane/Ene.
WARNINGS: Trigger warnings for death, serious illness, depression and suicide (though the last isn't mentioned outright, only implied. Also angst, implied and stated character death, and some trippy parts. In other words, mostly the same as canon. Also, possible spoilers for all forms of canon that currently exist, but especially the songs/music videos and the anime.
Disclaimer: All I own are copies of the music.
AN – The prompts are from a 25-sentences list compiled a few years ago using the titles of 25 songs I'd recently listened to. I do have a list of the songs, if anyone's interested. Feel free to use the prompts for your own fics, though I'd appreciate it if you credited me. This fic is unbetaed; all mistakes are mine.
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Airplanes
When they're walking out of school, Haruka likes to point out the winding steam trails criss-crossing the sky above them, while Takane pretends she doesn't find them as beautiful as he does.
Answer
One day in class, Haruka asks her straight out, "Do you think I'm good-looking?" and the syllables that stumble off her tongue in reply aren't comprehensible in any language.
Connect
The dark-haired boy sits down in the chair next to her, face illuminated by the sickly light of the computer screen before him, and she can't help but feel a kinship with him when she sees her own cool confidence mirrored in his expression.
Closer
Kenjirou-sensei probably thinks it's the janitor who keeps pushing Haruka's desk towards hers.
Diver
Travelling through Shintarou's internet connection is like diving into a fast-moving stream, but this body means that no matter what, Ene never emerges exhausted.
Fireflies
One of their summer study sessions lasts until the library's closing time, and she finds out that fireflies apparently consider Haruka to be an ideal landing spot.
Hallelujah
She's never really been religious, but she almost feels like finding someone or something to praise as Shintarou puts on his jacket and gets ready to leave for the computer store.
Heart
Both her heart and Haruka's are too weak, but in entirely different ways.
Hello
Some days, she wants to reply to Haruka's obnoxiously cheerful "Good morning" with an equally bright, "Hi!" but she can never get up the energy.
Homeless
She has no place of her own, only the computer she invaded, and which Shintarou no doubt wishes she would leave.
Hypersomnia
Even when she hasn't just spent a whole night shooting at imaginary foes on a computer screen, she's constantly drowsy, and that has more to do with her surly attitude than she'd ever be willing to admit.
Loop
She stares into the merciless yellow eyes of this being that was once Haruka and tries to figure out why she has the strangest feeling that his has happened before.
Meltdown
The mad, empty hate in Shintarou's eyes is as palpable as a pair of hands wrapping around her neck, their intensity barely diluted by the ever-thickening wall of "Delete" pop-up boxes slowly hiding them from her view.
Merry-Go-Round
She thought those seemingly-endless days with Haruka were monotonous, but this existence teaches her what true monotony is, as she lives through an endless cycle of days spent trying to cheer Shintarou up and nights spent regretting .
Monster
The ghost of a computer virus and a human who's little more than a zombie—is that really all she and Shintarou are now, she wonders.
Nineteen
Haruka will never have a nineteenth birthday, and with every passing day, she doubts more and more that Shintarou will make it there, either.
Now
Her heart is pounding and her lungs burn, but she has to get to Haruka right away and tell him what she's finally realized.
Numb
She tries to tell herself that she doesn't miss touch, but her tendency to hang off of Shintarou's phone icons like they're pillows she's hugging shows that for the lie it is.
Prototype
Shintarou's new phone is annoyingly buggy, and it's all she can do to stay upright as icons buzz in and out of existence around her.
Real
She's only pixels now, she realizes, and a sinking feeling fills the stomach she no longer has.
Shangri-La
She looks back on those days the four of them spent together as a sort of paradise that she's accidentally exiled herself from.
Stand
Maybe it's just the curtain flaring out behind her like a cape, but as she stands, feet spread apart, in front of the crowd of challengers, she thinks she might really be able to handle this.
Stories
Shintarou was the type of person that was difficult to talk with, so one night of watching him fall asleep at his desk, tears soaking into the fabric of his hoodie as he dreamed, told Ene more stories than a year of conversations with him had.
Stronger
In the beginning, she wasn't even that good at first-person shooters, but she kept coming back to them every time the insomnia hit, until, before she knew it, she'd become something like a pro.
Try
She forces another smile, makes another lame joke, teases Shintarou about something else she doesn't really think he should be that ashamed of, in hopes that maybe she can get the smile Ayano loved back onto his face.