The Traces of Her Laughter Haunted Both of Us

By: Aviantei

A Kagerou Days one shot

"You done eating already, Shintaro? You want any more?" They ask those sort of questions and I smile. I pull it off so spectacularly that I make myself sick. His smiles were so rare, so inconsistent, that it doesn't matter if my expression is entirely wrong. They had almost forgotten what he was like before I showed up, so it was easy.

"No thanks, I'm full," I say. His voice answers, something I know is deadly accurate. It grates my ears every time I hear it, makes me grind my teeth together. All they see is me smiling. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I mixed my own voice in with his, let his sound slowly die out. Would they notice? It would be refreshing to have someone else hear me properly again. "Thanks for the food." The words are added on as an afterthought as I stand up.

I walk away from the table, heading towards my room. The people that have become my parents smile at me, make jokes about locking myself up for two years again. The person that is my little sister frowns when she thinks my back is turned.

It started about a year ago, this whole mess. The first year, I did nothing but bawl my eyes out. I made it seem like I didn't, and no one ever caught on otherwise. Kido and Seto…even though they had grown up with me, they still couldn't see through my power. See the real me. They knew what had happened to me, but it never occurred to them that I was a filthy liar, and that's that.

Maybe Kido knew. I wouldn't put it past her. She always seemed to pick up on so much more. I'm almost disappointed that I had to leave her behind. If she had ever said something that let me know, maybe it wouldn't have come to this. It's too late to consider that.

That aside, they cried a lot. I only cried a few times in front of them, then made it seem like I had gotten over it. I would then run back to my room, bury my face in Onee-chan's scarf and hope that her smell would still be there—something to prove that she existed. Whenever I wasn't crying or playing the role of brother, I was looking into what had happened, trying to search for the reason why.

Why had Ayano done it? None of us could understand. We were a family. We had been happy. For nearly ten years we had been a happy little family, proof that such things were possible, and then we weren't. Ayaka was gone, then Onee-chan was too, and there was no way Kenjiro could focus on taking care of us anymore. The rest of Ayano's friends had disappeared, and the three of us were the only ones left.

The three of us and Shintaro.

It was almost too easy to become him. After hearing Onee-chan talk about him, about how he was a wonderful person, and peeking around the living room doorframe corners while the two of them worked on their homework, I had come to understand his personality. I didn't think he was as great as Onee-chan had described him, but she smiled around him. I was willing to put up with it so long as she was happy.

I can't stress how much I didn't like it. I hated it. For the longest time, Ayano had been no one's but ours, our big sister. Suddenly, Shintaro was all she talked about. Shintaro, Shintaro, Shintaro. How he was difficult but really nice when he warmed up to you, how smart he was, everything. I didn't want to hear it, but Onee-chan would always look so happy. He hadn't even wanted to be her friend in the first place, and here she was treating him like he was the best thing on the planet!

Maybe if I had been younger, I would have said something about it. I would have complained. But I was getting older by the day, and I was definitely past the age where whining about it would be acceptable. Seto would have teased me, Kido would have been disappointed, and Ayano would have scolded me. Nothing would have changed.

So I didn't say anything. I casted illusions, put on fake smiles, and everyone was happy. That entire time, all I could do was watch. I learned what Shintaro was like. I didn't want anything to do with the knowledge I had gathered. I pretended like I didn't know, let my falsified version of Shintaro be the bad guy I would defeat in my dreams. If I had known how useful it was going to be…

No, that definitely wouldn't have changed anything. I would have still hated it. I hate myself now for knowing so much, for putting on a mask in Shintaro's image. It makes me sick, even more so than the type of person I am. And if I had learned the reason why I would need to know such things, it would have made it even worse. I would have hated him more.

And that is something interesting to consider indeed.

No matter how much I try, I'll never be as good as Shintaro is with computers. Or academics. I'm not stupid, but I'm not a genius either. Even with my terrible start in terms of schooling, I'm still competent as a student. And when it comes to upholding Shintaro's genius reputation (and all the benefits that come with it), I can pull that off by using illusions of myself to cheat.

You can't do that with computers. I just don't know enough to manage something like that. I can't walk around and copy what other people when I don't even comprehend what they're doing. It took me a while of trying to find the right way around it, and in the end, the answer was less than ideal.

I downgraded Shintaro's systems, taking down two of the monitors and putting them in the back closet. They were messy anyway, bloodstains not easily cleaned off, a mess that it would drain my powers to conceal. The tower was fine, undamaged and clean, the oversized monster that it was. Through sheer luck and the use of the internet, I was able to return his settings to his default ones.

I never went looking through his things. I deleted most of them, and kept the things that had to do with Onee-chan. Even if I wanted them personally, it would have definitely blown my cover if suddenly all traces of Tateyama Ayano disappeared from Shintaro's life. I was willing to change a lot about him—whatever it took—but I knew I couldn't get rid of that.

So I had to change Shintaro's future around. While it turned out his parents assumed he would go into something concerning computers, he had never told them his ambitions. Being locked up in your room for two years tends to do that to a person. I didn't even have to fight with them on the point that he wasn't interested in computers as a job, and then got shipped off to university in his steed.

I'm two years younger than him, and I was still attending university after completing high school. It felt unreal, especially the whole "public school" vibe. Mom had never sent me to one, the orphanage couldn't afford to, and Ayaka and Kenjiro had homeschooled us. I adjusted soon enough behind masks and Shintaro's demeanor.

When I first saw him, Shintaro was a wreck. To be fair, I was a wreck, too, still bawling at the slightest thought of Ayano, but the crying had become less frequent for me. I don't even remember why I had gone to see him—and I doubted the me of that time had any idea either. All I know and knew was that it was too easy to break into his house, too easy to slip past everyone else, and too easy to find his room.

I had been jealous of him before, but most of it had dissipated during my grief. Seeing him again made me remember. That first time, he was lying on his bed, facing the wall. I moved to lean over him, observing his face. I was invisible to his eyes. He had been crying, his eyes still red (and not in the way that made you a monster), and traces of tears streaked down his cheeks.

I felt sorry for him in that moment. I thought he would understand, and if I revealed myself to him, we could talk about Ayano. We could both reminisce and sob together, and everything would be okay.

He sat up. I moved out of the way to prevent my powers from dissipating. He was muttering to himself, so low that there was no conceivable way I could hear him. I moved closer again. He was saying her name, and I thought he was grieving. Maybe he was like me, where he would say things to her memory, hoping it would reach her in the afterlife.

Then he stood up. The words he was saying didn't make any sense to me. But somehow I still put it together that he was seeing her, that his words were part of a conversation that only he could really participate in. I knew he wasn't really seeing her, though, that her ghost wasn't around for only him to see. He wouldn't have sounded so panicked if she was.

I watched him for a few minutes, fascinated. I hoped that maybe if I listened long enough, I would understand what he was talking about. I didn't make any progress on that front. As impulse as my decision to come and see him, I made another one.

"Shintaro, what's wrong?" I asked. I almost cried when I heard her voice again. I had the selfish urge to say my own name, to ruin what I had intended to do, just so I could feel safe again. I would curl up in a little ball and cuddle in side some blankets and pillows and feel absolutely safe for the night, then bawl all the way until morning. I stopped myself from doing it.

"Ayano…" Shintaro whispered. I wanted to erase her name from his memory. Just hearing it was as painful as everything else I was doing. Shintaro turned his focus on me, on the illusion of her I was creating. He didn't look surprised at all to see her, so then he must have been imagining this sort of stuff for a long time. "I'm sorry…"

"Sorry about what?" If Ayano were here, she would have sounded like that. She would have gone up to him, touched him, comforted him. I had to stay out of his reach for fear of my powers dissipating and getting caught. That didn't seem to be too much of an issue, though.

Shintaro sat down on the bed, but didn't reach for me. Maybe his past hallucinations had discouraged him for contact or something. Whatever the reason was, I'm still grateful about it. "I'm sorry for being so useless and not catching on to what was wrong with you. I'm sorry that I couldn't stop you from killing yourself."

I gasped, a soft intake of air. It didn't pass Ayano's lips. Was he really responsible? Was that really happened? Had she been giving off signs, ones that only Shintaro would have noticed? Kido and Seto had racked their brains for clues while I sat on the side, pretending to be focusing. We hadn't been able to think of a thing; Onee-chan had been the same Onee-chan until the day she died. We were sure of that.

I didn't know what she would say in this situation because I didn't know the truth. People may not realize it, but the truth is the foundation for lies. It's how you make them convincing, how you can get away with things. If you're not careful, people will catch you. I had already had an unfair advantage in the facial expression and body language department of lying, so I had put a lot of thought into the actual construction of lies to pull them off properly.

Did Ayano really blame Shintaro for her death? I doubted it. Even if it was his fault, she never would have blamed him. I don't think she could blame anyone at all. So the idea was unthinkable. And yet…

I didn't know what to say. Shintaro didn't insist on a response. I dispersed the mask of Onee-chan's smiling face, leaving nothing behind as I exited the room.

"Here you go, Shintaro," the person that has become my father says. I had been wary at first, wondering if all fathers were like Kenjiro, before I realized that was an exception. The oldest male in the Kisaragi household is a warm, supportive man that has a regular old office job. In his hands right now is an envelope. I take it, slowly opening it up. Inside is money. I'm left wondering what it's for until he says, "Happy birthday."

I almost say that he's wrong, but I catch myself. It's true that my birthday is another ten days in the future, but that doesn't mean Shintaro's is. The fact had completely escaped my memory. For a moment I'm stuck reminiscing about getting jealous of him because Onee-chan was making a big deal out of his birthday, but then being pleasantly surprised whenever she planned my surprise party.

"Thanks," I manage to say.

It really is a lot of money. The Kisaragis aren't poor, but they certainly aren't rich either. Hosting their previously hikikomori son for two years has been a hard enough income challenge for them, even with Momo bringing in some extra money from her idol job. I can't help but wonder where all this money came from, how much budgeting and saving had to happen for it to end up in my hands.

"There's enough there to help out with tuition," my father says. "Your mom and I both know that you blew away the scholarship requirements, but this was just in case. And since you don't need it for that, you're free to spend it however you want."

Enough money to help out with tuition, huh? Then there's even more than I thought hidden away in this envelope. I'm going to start school in the second trimester as Kisaragi Shintaro. The school I'm attending is close enough that I can stay at home while I attend, no need to find a place to stay. The family will even pay for utilities and food. I should probably look into finding some sort of job, otherwise I'll just start to be a burden.

"Thanks a lot, Dad," I repeat, smiling. He looks back at me and smiles in return, heading back to the living room for his day off. I have the feeling that I'll probably be greeted with some sort of cake at dinner, a low key affair. That will be good enough for me. I slip the envelope into my pocket, thinking about stowing it away in accounts and investments until I decide what else to do with it.

I encounter Momo, the girl that has become my little sister, on the way back to my room. I go to wave to her, but stop halfway through. Momo is a really cute girl, which is part of the reason for her success as an idol. The other part has to do with her eye power, but I've never called her out on it, and she's never mentioned it to me. Right now, she's glaring at me, and I stop walking.

"How dare you," she says, almost spitting the words. I've never seen her so angry. "How can you just call him that? How can you treat him like that, Shintaro? You know he's not really Dad!"

For a moment I'm stunned, and it has nothing to do with the tears spilling out of Momo's eyes. Then it occurs to me. Her eyes. I realized it a long time ago, when Ayano finally got the rest of us to talk about what had happened to us, swearing that she'd keep everything a secret. All of us, with our monster's eyes, had died at one point, someone else dying with us. The knowledge snaps into place, creating a full-blown realization in the process.

Momo and Shintaro's father is dead, having passed at the same time Momo gained her eye power. The man I've been unknowingly treating like a father this whole time is their mother's husband, part of a remarriage. I can guess that Momo doesn't like him much, either. Shintaro must have kept his feelings neutral or didn't care when it happened, since his sister seems more angry and hurt than suspicious.

I sigh.

"I don't see why that should matter," I say. "He helped me out once I came out of my room as much as Dad would have done." I pray that my words are correct, even if I don't believe in such things. One wrong word and the lie unfolds. I can't afford that. "Mom seems happy with him, too. Even if he's not Dad, that doesn't mean we should treat him poorly for it, right?"

There are tears in her eyes I just can't ignore, overflowing into sobs. She's emotionally unstable enough that whatever control she normally exerted over her powers is gone, the all-too familiar glow of red behind the sheen of tears. I try to look away, but I can't. Momo doesn't say anything else, just runs down the hallway and down the stairs, my eyes following her the whole time. The front door slams shut within less than a minute.

I blink.

Over time, the visits became more and more violent. Not in the physical sense, but in the psychological one. After a few months of talking to Shintaro as Onee-chan, I had become convinced that my interpretation on that day had been true. Somehow, it was Shintaro's fault that she had died. Somehow, he could have stopped it.

I didn't stop taking on Ayano's form. Slowly but surely, I transitioned into blaming him, confirming his suspicions alongside some form of personal revenge. Every time I would say those things to him, my own hatred would only get stronger. Maybe I had been searching for catharsis, but I got the opposite effect. It never occurred to me to stop. He deserved it. He deserved every single ounce of what I was telling him.

"It was all because of you, Shintaro, don't you realize it? Why didn't you stop me? Why didn't you try? I guess you really didn't care for me that much then. I should have known someone like you wouldn't. I bet you thought I was stupid for trying, didn't you? Don't try to apologize, you won't make up for it. It's all your fault!"

It was far more of my voice than hers, but they sounded the same to him. I was using her voice and appearance for my own selfish desires. I would torture Shintaro when no one else was home, then go home smiling, talking to the Ayano that was my Onee-chan and didn't belong to anyone else. I could have done the same for Kido and Seto, but by that point, they had moved on for the most part.

I was the only one that needed something like that.

I would always make sure Shintaro cried before I left. Sometimes I would stop there, other times I would keep going until I was satisfied. I think the longest I stayed was until he didn't have any tears left, and had sobbed, aching his throat until he fell asleep. I felt no remorse about it. The only thing I felt the tiniest bad about was creating the demon version of Ayano that was haunting Shintaro on a regular basis.

In the beginning, I only went in once every few months. He had his own hallucinations, and that was fine by me. He felt guilty. As I started to make my verbal jabs worse, I decided he wasn't guilty enough. The lie I had created for him was now my truth. I went in weekly visits, which slowly deteriorated into once every couple of days, until the week I was almost there all the time, and would have been if the others wouldn't have gotten suspicious.

And then, after that straight week of haunting Shintaro, there was no need to do so anymore.

One of the things I struggled the most with was what to do about clothes. Obviously, as much as I wanted to, I couldn't switch Shintaro's style over to my own without seeming suspicious, at least not right away. My initial plan to just wear my clothes and cast the illusion of his had some holes. When it came down to it, I hadn't figured out the proper way to maintain my powers whenever others came into physical contact with me.

I had learned a few things by encountering random strangers though and experimenting with my looks, though. If I were to focus on a specific area of illusions—take facial expressions for example—if I was touched elsewhere, my powers didn't falter. I could focus in on keeping my face to look like his, get clothes that matched his style but actually fit me, and through in a suggestion that I was his height that shouldn't have been too much of a problem if it disappeared for a moment.

Luckily for me, I was still a growing boy. Even before I had to take over Shintaro's life, I had been gaining centimeters here and there in the height department. I noticed the increase was still occurring whenever I would finally strip myself of Shintaro's form. Soon enough, I wouldn't even need the height aspect of my illusion anymore.

I was taking the switch between Shintaro's old wardrobe and the supplementary one I was gaining very slowly. My new mother handled the laundry, so I didn't want to give her a sudden increase of new clothing items to notice (especially when I hadn't exactly purchased them). The sum of birthday money made things easier, but it was still a process that needed to be taken slowly.

All of his clothes felt like they belonged to a stranger. I could almost still smell Shintaro in them, even after multitudes of washes. It disgusted me to wear them, but I put up with it. I would donate them in time, give them to some other orphan that didn't give a damn whose clothes they used to be.

The only one I couldn't get rid of was the jacket.

Onee-chan had loved this jacket. I had overheard that once. She had said it looked good on him. I had made it through that encounter by reminding myself that she only liked it, and the jacket I wore was one she had given me. I still had that jacket around, would wear it when I went to sleep, but could never wear it outdoors since it was too risky.

A part of me wanted to get rid of the jacket. It really did. It was just an old tracksuit jacket, one probably just lying around after some time in gym class that had managed to stick around. Not even my new parents would blame me for getting rid of it. Momo didn't seem to know the reason for it anyway. But it was still connected to Onee-chan, so I couldn't do it.

Since it looked good on Shintaro, surely it would look good on me now that I had his appearance, right?

When I came in that night, Shintaro was already dead. I hadn't had to say anything to inspire it; that was just how it was. From the looks of it, he had sat down on his bed and stabbed himself. His shirt was soaked with blood, although any stains were hidden in the black color. If it weren't for the blade sticking out of him, I would have thought he was asleep.

I almost fell down, my back hitting against the door, my powers dissolving, hands covering my mouth to prevent any noise from coming out. He was dead. I didn't know why, but he was dead. The logical reason was that the ghost of Ayano had been too much for him to bear, and he had gotten depressed enough to just end it.

As such, he was dead because of me.

The smell of blood finally got to me and I rushed over to his trashcan, losing the dinner I had eaten less than an hour ago. The scent of vomit didn't do anything to improve my stomach, so I opened a window. The cool night air sucked the smell away, resetting my nausea. I looked back to the body that was now beside me, confirming what I had already known.

Kisaragi Shintaro was dead.

I laughed. I didn't feel bad at all about it. If anything, the puking had been a reaction in reminder to my own death, the scent of blood, warm and my own, mixed with the pain. I hoped that Shintaro had felt at least half as bad as I had, because he deserved it. I only wished I could have seen him break down and do it. None of his family was home, my laughter taking up residence in their steed.

It occurred to me in a flash of insight. I wrapped his body up in the blankets, just barely managing to push him out the window without making a trail. I didn't make enough of a racket for the neighbors to notice, either, and I used my powers to wipe out his visual existence. There was a construction site nearby that I had been passing for months. It was empty, the workers gone home for the day. I managed to tuck him beneath some rocks that I knew would be coated with concrete the next morning and went back to the house, bloody blankets in tow.

I managed to start up his computer, wiping off the monitors. My renovations to the system would come later, and I looked up how to wash blood out of fabric. I found the Kisaragi laundry room, loading the entire bed set into the washer, then added my own bloody shirt as well. I left the window to his bedroom open clearing out most of the smell and putting on Shintaro's unstained jacket in lieu of my own. Waiting for the blankets to wash, I made myself a snack in the kitchen.

On a whim I put on Shintaro's face. His mother was the first to return home that night and she cried when she saw me. The rest of the family returned and did the same.

I come home from classes one day to catch a glimpse of Kido and Seto in the kitchen. Neither of them notice me, and I'm quick to hide my presence entirely. It seems like Marry's come along as well and is doing fine, somehow surviving in the outside world. They all sit around the table with Momo, who's set out some snacks for them to enjoy, chatting it up. Suddenly, it feels wrong that I'm not sitting with them.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I never told them why I had left, where I always disappeared to. They were all worried about it, but Marry was the only one who ever said anything, occasionally Seto speaking in her place. Kido would just give me these looks—the ones girls give you but you can never describe—and then moved on. She never said anything. She never needed to.

Now I'm stuck thinking about everything I've done, and how it's best that they don't know. They've believed I've disappeared, and that's that. They thought I was running around the city, never getting into enough trouble that it would follow me back to our door. That must have been enough for them. And then whatever I ran off too swept me up in it, and that's the end.

And really, that is right. Without even paying attention I've become something I've never wanted to be, just rolling along with the consequences of my actions. I was never like the rest of them anyway, no matter how similar we were. After Onee-chan died, that was the last straw. It was only a matter of time before we drifted apart.

The idea hurts me more than I think it should. I'm struck with the realization that there's no longer going to be days of hanging around, pretending to be superheroes with scarves around our necks. They may not give my position away, but the Blindfold Gang will move on without me, slowly but surely. They'll eventually become adults, and I'll just be pretending to be one.

And even if we ran into each other in the afterlife, Ayano will never, ever smile at me again.

I'm tempted to give myself one more day with them, as selfish as that is. I want to be Kano Shuuya again, laughing with my friends, even if I don't deserve it. We'll all be together, and then I can slip back into my new home in the middle of the night. I'll be able to have both of my families. The idea is so wonderful, I almost cave in to it.

I think for a few minutes, still invisible. Unlike all the snap decisions that lead to this moment, I think it through. I think it through so hard that I may not have the energy to tackle my homework that's weighing down my bag, the strap digging into my shoulders. Finally, after all the consequences have been considered, I make myself visible again and force myself to walk into the kitchen before I change my mind.

"You must be Momo's friends," I say. Everyone's eyes turn to me. "I'm Kisaragi Shintaro. It's nice to meet you."

I don't think there could have been better timing for me to post this.

This story came out of several things: the realization that Shuuya blames Shintaro for Ayano's death, Shuuya uses his powers to fuck with people by taking on others' appearances, Route XXX, giving Shuuya some minor sister complex characteristics, the thought of "what if Shuuya caused Shintaro's suicide then took his place?", some twisting of canon, and the fact that I absolutely love Shuuya and twisting his pathological lying tendencies into far more sociopathic ones.

The fact that episode seven of the anime happened the same week I went to post this is really just a happy coincidence.

I really never expected this story to be five-thousand words, but it ended up that way. I'm really happy with how it came out, too.

The Traces of Her Laughter Haunted Both of Us is actually one of a few sociopathic Shuuya one shots I wrote several months ago to vent out some of my possible headcanons and scenarios. It'll probably take me several more months to post it, but if you liked this, you may like that one, too.

Things are in minor production mode for me while I'm overseas, but when I get back I should be able to update information on my blog and profile to be more accurate. Guesses of when I'll be posting the next one shot can be found in those places.

Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts!

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