A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, b14 – write a first person POV fic.
The Glass Sphere of Our Lies
I pretend I don't remember but I do. I remember, and I carry the pain of those memories inside.
But as long as you think I don't remember, you are spared. Just a little bit – because you've foolishly taken these burdens on your shoulders and eventually they will kill you. Already, they should have killed you but you're still alive. You survived. You struggle on – and that's the only reason I can pretend to smile, pretend to be alive as well.
But this will kill you one day. Either it will be me and no good instinct or good luck will save you, or it will be yourself, buried under the weight of everything you've taken up. All because you fell in love with me, who had Hinamizawa blood, who had a parasite living in their mind warping their world.
Or that was what everyone said. And, at some point, I couldn't believe the lies in that warp.
But still, I pretend I don't remember. Those memories mean I don't deserve this life, I don't deserve you. They mean when you reach for me I might grab that scalpel off the doctor's tray or that butterknife from the saucer with butter on it and stab you in the throat, like I did my father, like that day on the hospital roof and they should have killed me then, so we wouldn't be trapped in this façade. But we are trapped. That technicality that meant I could not be committed sentenced us both to these fates. Me to these eternal lies: your lies, my lies, so we can at least pretend to be happy people, a happy couple.
But I know I've snatched that happiness of yours away long ago. When you first fell in love. When you stopped those two men, when you hid me behind your back and thus hid the parasite about to hatch. When you believed me without another word, even though you saw that proof, that horrible place.
And even after you learnt the truth… you really were foolish that day, and it almost killed you. But timing saved you. Timing saved you and took you out of my reach and you should have stayed there, should have gone on with your life and become happy again and left me to waste away in that white room. But instead you searched for me. You searched and you found me, and you swept me up like a fairy tale and took me away as though the past was behind us and we could live a happy life, forever.
And I foolishly went along with you, having fooled myself so spectacularly. But I remember, and I can't always live in denial. I know what you sacrificed. I know how much it pains you now because you're not a child anymore and you can't possibly be happy not doing your best, not being your best – and I'm here to hold you down until the gallows fall.
But if I tell you I remember or you cease your lie that acquits me, then the gallows fall so all I can do is prolong the lie, prolong the dream, prolong our lives that will crack open and spill blood into the ocean if the lie fails.
