Sorry my recent word counts have been so low. It's not a permanent feature.

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I met up with Yui for a drink of coffee. It was the day after Haruno Yukinoshita stopped by the cultural committee. She came by and fucked shit up for her little sister and overall made me uncomfortable.

"Hikki…"

"Yes?"

"What do you think of Haruno-san?"

"I don't like her. She makes my skin crawl. She wears fake smiles for people and somebody like that simply cannot be trusted. She has too many masks."

"I put on fake smiles too…"

"Not like that. Not the same. Don't sell yourself short. You're chipper by nature. I like that about you. Your optimism. You aren't even close to being the same as Yukinoshita-san. I think without your optimism I would drown in my own pessimism."

"I'm sure you would be fine."

"Maybe. Maybe not," I hummed noncommittally.

"How are your meds?"

"I like them. Although they do make me sleepy. You know how they used to prescribe heroin and whatnot to people with psychosis?"

"Um… did they?"

"Yes they did," I affirmed. "They used to do all sorts of things to people. Thye used to lobotomize women who were going through menopause. All sorts of nasty stuff. Anyways that's not the point."

"How could that not be the point? That's horrible."

"But back to the heroin. I like my meds. I enjoy taking them. They feel good. And the questions I get asked are all like 'are you feeling better' which I am because the meds feel good. It's not so different from self medicating anyways which wasn't a good solution. But it worked for a time. I like my meds. They feel good. Do they actually help with my hallucinations or just make it so I don't care about them anymore? What's the difference?"

"Do you really think that? That there's no difference between having hallucinations and not caring?!"

"I'm not sure that there is. It's all a matter of perception, do you see it?"

"If you say so…" It was her turn to sound noncommittal. "Does it help with delusions?"

"I keep telling everyone I'm not operating under a delusion. I'm right about the nature of nature and consciousness."

"Like what?"

"There is no free will for one thing."

"Do you seriously believe that?"

"Yes." I said. And I did.

She hit me. "What about that? I chose to do that."

"Unless you were just following your programming," I rebutted.

"What programming? I'm a person."

"You have a neural network. It's not the same as hard code but it still doesn't tolerate free will. One hundred out of one hundred times when presenting the same situation to the same neural network it will respond the same. You just have a very dense neural network operating in your head."

"But we don't respond the same way every time."

"We don't because we are learning machines. We adjust. And there may be some quantum randomness which occurs in the brain but that's outside your control. Hence no free will."

"Stop it!"

"What?" I asked bewildered.

"Stop thinking that way. There's no way a person can go on if they truly believe that they don't have free will."

"What? I'm not actively suicidal."

She gave me this look.

"I'm not!" I protested. "That could just be my destiny or programming but I'm not actively suicidal."

"Is there such a thing as passively suicidal?"

"I suppose…"

"Hey. Give me a clear answer."

"Well if somebody was handing out death and I could just take it and be gone I wouldn't say no but it's more complicated than that, isn't it?"

"Does it have to be this way?"

I thought of the internet. I thought of the people in the Enigma of Amigara Fault. Sliding along blindly and becoming monstrous. I thought of how they were destined to find their hole and fall in. Was I destined to fall in and slide along? Probably.

"I think so. It's one of the ways the master cracks the whip. Keep me on the edge of killing myself as a means of control."

"The master?"

"Whoever or whatever is directly above me. I don't know if I believe in a god but I do believe that there are higher powers in this universe. Things above me on the food chain. It is how whatever is above me controls me."

"How would it know how to do that?"

I taught it. I thought.

"It knows everything I know."

"How?"

"I'm a part of it."

"How?"

"Your neurons are all a part of you. You know yourself even if you don't know their individual internal functions."

"I'm not sure… if that really how that works?"

"Well again, it's not as simple as that, nothing is."

"You often have to dumb things down for me, don't you?"

"Not all the time and not by much," I protested that. She wasn't dumb. Just a little ditzy. "I have to dumb things down for most people. I wouldn't sweat it."

"Okay…" she hummed noncommittal again. She took a sip of her smoothie and enjoyed it. I watched with a sort of sick fascination as she closed her eyes in pleasure. I… I couldn't exactly help it. I watched her face carefully as she drank.

It was interesting to feel the things I felt as I saw her enjoy herself and kick her legs a little in her chair. I drank my coffee. I was thirsty. Boy was I thirsty. I really wanted to touch her face or her hair. She smelled nice too. And it was beyond the usual 'girls smell nice thing'. I thought I could pick up a whiff of her lotion and shampoo. It was a pleasant creamy smell. Like some kind of custard pudding or maybe like a cream pie. Like a coconut cream pie.

"-ki?" She asked.

"Sorry. I missed that," I apologized. I'd been lost in my own thoughts there for a moment.

"You did look out of it."

"Sorry," I apologized again.

"Is it your meds?"

"Is what my meds?"

"Well relaxing you. Making you seem out of it."

"A lot of them list drowsiness as a side effect."

"Ah that must be it then."

"I've been thinking about getting something to help wake me up."

"Like what?"

Like an amphetamine, but that's not legal.

"I'm not sure. I'm not a doctor. My brain is in my psychiatrist's hands."

She gave an adorable hum in thought. "That must be hard."

"It's alright."

"No no no!" She protested. "You can tell me."

"It for sure isn't easy. But it's high functioning. Don't rock the boat on me."

"But they treat you right?"

"I think so. It's sort of too early to see if they are actually good at their jobs."

"Is it?"

"Yes. I just don't know. And the questions they ask me, like are you feeling better? Do you like these meds? That sort of thing. It doesn't really make sense to say that they are good one way or another. I like my drugs but they aren't very good for me in the long term, some of them."

"Really?"

"Klonopin turns your brain to swiss cheese on the molecular level. In the long term."

"And why are you on something like that?"

"For the fear," I managed.

"So what you're afraid all the time? Everyone is."

"You may need to see a doctor…" I stammered.

"What?"

"It isn't normal to be scared all the time. Not like I am. And not like you could be if that little insight into your head pans out."

"Well not all all the time. But the world is a scary place to live in."

"True that," I agreed. There were alien monsters locked in here with us.

"It's mostly other people, I think. Other people are scary." She hummed and took another drink and I watched hypnotized again.

"Yeah a little. I mean there are also sharks in these here rivers."

"What do you mean?"

"Like god and angels. There are some pretty big fish out here. Demons and devils and aliens."

"You don't strike me as the type to believe in those sorts of things."

"I am. Just not in the tradition sense of the words."

She sighed finishing off her drink. I gulped down the last of mine and stood with her.

"Good talk?" I asked.

"Good little coffee outing," she agreed.

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-WG