Meaningless Numbers

By: Aviantei

A Kagerou Project One-Shot

So back then, I really did like him.

I didn't want to admit it, of course. He was just so stupid, so simplistic, that I didn't want anything to do with him. But in the end, one thing led to another, and I was stupidly captivated by him. I ended up wanting his attention in all the dumbest ways, and that selfishness led to him losing his life.

I died too, in time. I was okay with it. Part of me really felt like I deserved it. I had made a stupid mistake and Haruka had been the one to pay the price. But I got stuck with the grim reaper in the end, who taunted me into living again. Told me to find my own reason, dragging me back to the land of the living, kicking and screaming as I went.

Reincarnation wasn't easy or simple. I gained the power of immortality through a stupid subconscious desire to not be so weak. Despite what I had believed, I really did want to live. The only catch to this was that I was trapped as a computer program, unable to be deleted. It took some adjusting, but I suppose I got used to it in the end. I was content.

Until I saw him. Somehow, Haruka was alive. By whatever stupid whim the grim reaper had, he was alive. The problem was that he wasn't Haruka anymore. He didn't look like Haruka, talk like Haruka, act like Haruka in anyway at all, or even know he was Haruka. His price for living had been his memories, just like mine had been my own body.

That wasn't the only problem. In the time we had been apart, he had met someone else. There was suddenly a girl I didn't even know that he had gotten attached to, had started something with. He didn't even remember me, so I couldn't ask him if he had ever cared for me the same way.

For a while, I thought it was for the better. What could I even do for him, anyway? I was a computer program, nothing else. I couldn't touch him, hold him close, physically comfort him. I didn't feel any less like a person, less like a human being. But I knew I was. I was just a collection of pixels that meant nothing to him. We didn't have any history. We didn't even call each other by our real names.

I hated it. I tried to pretend like it was fine, but sometimes I couldn't manage it. I would disappear for a while, away from where anyone could see me, float around with some spare strings of data that I felt a strange connection with. I was a string of meaningless numbers that the person who had once been Haruka couldn't even understand. In the end, I was able to let it go. Even if I didn't like it, there was nothing I could do about it.

So what was I supposed to do when it was over? What was I supposed to do, when I was back in my real body, him back in his? Whenever we became the people we had been before again? Except that we still had that time, those months. I couldn't erase the time he had with her, how they were still close. I wanted to destroy it, but I couldn't.

I decided to write a letter. I put all the feelings into it I had had since his death, since my death, since our rebirths, everything. I called him Haruka again. I told him that I loved him. And in the end, I asked his girlfriend if it would be okay to give it to him.

She said yes, but I never did. I was somehow satisfied with everything that I had done until now and didn't need to go through with it. Haruka was happy. That was all that mattered.

I went back home and turned the paper over. I scribbled out the computer code that had been mine and was still stuck in my memories, cramping my hand, the numbers getting smaller and smaller as I made it closer to the bottom of the page. When I was done, I took my creation outside, went to the top of the hill I had dreamed out before Haruka died, the one you could see the entire city from. I was grinning like an idiot. I bet the Grim Reaper would have laughed if she saw me.

I threw the paper airplane with all my strength. It got caught on some breeze. I let the numbers that didn't control my life anymore disappear with my feelings into the wind.

End

I actually wrote this a while ago, decided that it didn't deserve to see the light of day, and hid it. Recently I read through it again, decided I actually liked it, and put it into my queue of things to post. And, well, here it is.

After reading through most of the Headphone Actor/Yukei Yesterday arc in the manga, I got the idea for this. Summertime Record had also premiered as well, so I tried incorporating shit. I know it's not entirely accurate to how canon works, but it works with how I was interpreting canon at the time, so...

There's really not much else to say about this, so I'll leave it at that. If anyone's looking for updates to my other stories, I intend to post some the next few days, along with another one shot. It's been busy lately, but I'm still trying to keep up with my writing...

I hope that anyone who went through this found it worth reading.