Predictability...

It's everywhere, now.

The City has fallen silent, once again, sinking back into the void somewhere between Life and Death, but never really fulfilling one of the two. The river still runs, polluted with runamuck of places we'd never go, the lights in the windows seem to blaze on suddenly, and then fade as if in some harmony, giving light to the dark streets below, always the same. The businesses never move, in the early hours of morning, where I like to sit on the roof and try to see over the fog that's engulfed us all, I sometimes like to count the people as they go by. Always in dark suits, ties, carrying briefcases, destined off to nowhere but here, home. Mabase.

The City that doesn't exist. Just like any other city you've come across with your bright lights, strip bars, and greasy drive-though stops, we've got them. Just like any other city's problems, we've got those, too. Little kids swinging in the park, check. Angry mother screaming at them to come home, check. Little white terrier yapping continually at her heels as she does this, check.

That was the only interesting thing I've seen happen in a month. It might seem unbelievable, but you've heard me say this many times before, I'm sure. You know who I am, my name is Taku Nandaba, sometimes called Takkun by someone older than myself, or a pissed-off teacher who can't seem to understand why I'm not paying attention.

I can tell them why, but of course, they'd only laugh at me. Because my response would be that an alien with violently pink hair came cascading down from somewhere in space, singlehandedly wrecked my Life, the City, and the old Medical Mechanica factory that now stands dormant at the end of town, and then left on a yellow vespa of equally violent color, leaving a trail of wreckage in her wake, and not all of it physical.

Grow up, Takkun.

Those happened to be Minamori's last words to me as she left this place, some three years before. She said it was because she couldn't take the claustrophobia anymore. She said that she hated being locked away inside of her own Life, a glitch in the timeline, were her exact words. She told me that, if I ever left, to come find her, and we could stay together. The old Takkun had thought of this as insanity, as something perverted and probably hinting at sex, the kind of stuff that would make the old Takkun's face catch fire. The kind of stuff that he'd dream about, night after night, until the point where he nearly committed suicide while finally working up the nerve to admit...

Damn, had he ever admitted.

That was also the 2nd to last time he'd ever seen her, again.

It was three years ago, and it was about six o' clock in the evening. There was a carnival in-town, and he was a total wreck from Haruko's departure. The only things existed in the world seemed to be a blue Rickenbacker guitar, and his bedroom window. How he would stare, for hours, his heart leaping at every time he saw a shooting star, every time a star looked even the least bit suspicious...

They say kids heal quickly, but unfortunately for him, he wasn't a kid, anymore. Not since three seconds tore every bit of childhood screaming from his body.

You're just a kid, Takkun...

God-Damn it, those words had cut like knives. So Takkun, having absolutely nothing to do, decided to visit the fair, just to look-see. To try and lose himself in the whirling neon lights, the sick-sweet smell of cotton candy, and the cheap popcorn that it was the tradition to eat so much of it you vomited.

He smiled, he remembered doing that with...

Ah, Hell...Here it goes, again.

Takkun stood at the gates to the carnival, tickets dangling idly from his hands, deciding now if he even wanted to go in, or not. It looked fun, sure enough, I mean, the food was awful, the rides were enough to force your head to unscrew, and the music blaring through the speakers would make the deaf complain, but that's the reason why you come, right? To lose yourself, to truly get an invitation to ride.

He had the goddamned invitation, he just had to show up.

So he went, he went through the gates, and spent four hours in there, for absolutely no reason at all, he screamed on the rides, he screamed at the vendors, he screamed at the people in line. He didn't know why, he was just trying to fill the void that had been in his chest for the past two years, since Haruko had left, since his entire Life had been righted, back into predictability, back to where everything was so...So right. Back to square one, the infinitely long, infinitely lame, square one.

Did I want to go back?

He can ask himself that, now, but it never works. It never seems to want to answer him, as if that's something he must find out solely for himself, a quest of self-fulfillment beyond the foggy gates of the City, into the world beyond, and up from that world, lies...

Insanity, the perfect medicine for Mabase, also the very thing that could destroy it.

He grinned at the thought. If only...

Takkun has long since died, having given rise to Taku, the newer, older, more cynical version of himself, equipped with a set of battered emotions, a guitar, and a listless, endlessly repetitive present.

Both could remember the night when Takkun had died.

The carnival was winding down, more people off the rides, less sounds of retching and tears, more drifters off towards home, pillows, and the soft blue glow of the T.V. Takkun wasn't one of them, though. In trying to lose himself, he'd somehow screwed up, and managed to become addicted. He rode every attraction as if it were his last, determined to live it to the maximum, as if he would die within the next ten seconds, and the last memory of himself would be his arms spread to the sky, tears blurring his vision and the wind smashing against his head amongst the screams of...

Yaaaaaaah!!!

Something out a freelance comic, I'm sure. That was from the new Takkun, the one called Taku, who simply decided not to do such things anymore.

Takkun wasn't about to die, not by a long shot, but he was about to die.

He saw Minamori a second later, and his guts froze. He stood there, mouth open, goggle-eyed. Stupid red cap tilted off his head, windswept hair and teary-eyed, as if the person in question was dancing naked in front of him.

Only in his dreams, of course.

Minamori was trudging through the fairground, her eyes completely denying the expression of vigor in her face. Her eyes were almost the same as Takkun's. They held nothing noticeable, they only surveyed everything in front of them, analyzed it silently, and projected accordingly. It was as if her eyes ran her body, now, instead of her brain.

Takkun knew that feeling, he knew that expression. He knew exactly how she felt...

Only she didn't know how he felt. As in about her.

So this is what happened. All twenty minutes of the ending of Takkun's Life, and the beginning of the rest of it, as mundane and eventless as it is.

Takkun walked towards her, waving, and she smiled at him in return. He spoke, and his voice sounded to him as if it were coming from the bottom if a well.

"Hey, Minamori."

She surveyed him quietly. "Hi, Takkun."

He stood by her for a moment, and she didn't go anywhere. So he kicked his feet in the dirt, and said, "Whatcha' doin?"

Her look turned sour, and her tone was sarcastic as it usually was. "Standing here, how about you?"

His smiled flickered for a moment, and then came into being again. "About the same." He glanced at the now-still rides, and the people leaving through the gates. "I didn't know you were here. I would've found you if I'd known."

Minamori shrugged. "Okay. Maybe next time."

But there never was one, was there, Takkun?

Takkun gestured towards the gates, suggesting that they should go. Minamori shrugged indifferently, and the began to leave together, Takkun making careful sure to stay in step with her. They walked like that for several minutes, talking about anything, from cars to school to annoying teachers they knew or shared...

He made her laugh a few times, he loved it when she laughed. Her entire face lit up, and it looked so very alive. It was a startling contrast to the serene expression she usually wore, always pondering, but never speaking a word.

Her favorite phrase was "It's no big deal." Do you remember that, Takkun?

Damn right he did. Damn right, he'll never forget. Because what she said next slammed the breath out of him as effectively as a guitar.

"I'm leaving Tomorrow, Takkun." Minamori looked up at him, and held his gaze. "I'm leaving Mabase to live with some friends of mine, since my parents are—" Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged. Takkun was sure that if he asked her why, he'd get the same old response. "It's no big deal."

So he didn't ask her, he merely nodded. "I hope I see you again, then." He dropped his gaze away from her eyes, missing their widening, and said almost in a whisper. "I think I'll miss you, too."

She lifted his head, and stared directly into his eyes, as if searching for some light at the long end of a tunnel, and then smiled softly. "It's fine, Takkun. If you leave soon, you can come stay with me." Her face showed no color, no embarrassment. "It's better we stay together, now, huh?" She sighed. "We're all we've got."

Here we are at the end of the world...

Takkun nodded, willing himself not to cry as she stared at him, and smiled shakily. "Okay." His voice was still a whisper, and sound barely emerged from his lips. He swallowed, nodded again, and said louder, "Okay."

Minamori dropped her hand from his face, and looked for a long moment into his eyes, again. Taku stared back until he felt that they would become a black hole, an endless void of all the emotion she so determinedly suppressed, and he drew away, embarrassed.

"What's the matter?" Minamori's voice was cool, and questioning. Takkun misread it as longing and hurt, and he reacted accordingly.

"I...I—Uh." His face colored, his brow sweat, and Minamori continued staring at him, her face still that cool-but-questioning look, until she attained one of dawning comprehension.

"You're going to miss me, aren't you?"

More than you will ever know, now.

He continued staring at her, stuttering beneath her gaze and his baseball cap, until he blurted out, in one anguished barrage of emotion.

"I love you, Minamori!"

Poor bastard.

She stared at him in silence, her eyes reflecting more than just the moon, shining underneath the streetlight that shrouded them both, and she said.

"Grow up, Takkun."

And, just like that, in three seconds, he died.

She walked inside home with a parting, backward wave, until the door shut, leaving him out there, amidst in his own torrent of emotion.

Takkun soon left afterwards, after he remembered how to walk. He didn't see her face at the window, he didn't hear her sobs behind the glass...

He had eyes only for himself.

So that's it, then. There you have it, that's how Takkun ceased to exist, and Taku came to be, all in the space of a few seconds. It's funny how quickly things can change, most people just up and deal with it, but in a city where nothing ever happens...

It takes one Hell of a long time...

He was leaving. Tomorrow. Just as the others had done.