A/N
I know it's been a long time since my last update … but these next two chapters were really hard for me to write and it look me a very long time. I really appreciate the people who reviewed so far! Please review this chapter too!
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Compelled
We wait for light, but behold darkness …
Radiance.
I think that was why I was instantly attracted to Hinamori. When we first met, it was as if I discovered the most precious things anyone could ever come across. And I protected it. I had hoped that just being near her would be enough for me. I had hoped that the kind of light she always shined on others would shine even more so on me. I wanted her to love me and chase away my shadows. Maybe I had come to lean on that ideal a bit too much. Somewhere along the line, I suddenly realized that I'd never be able to go back to being alone. The time had come and gone to get up and leave at a moment's notice. I was completely dependent on her. And that scared me. Not because I would have a problem with Hinamori being with me all the time. It's not like that at all. I could only dream of a life like that. But as much as I wanted Hinamori in my life, I also wanted to protect her. Hinamori is pure light. She is beautiful in every way that a person can be. When we first met, it dawned on me that truly warm people actually do exist. Before Hinamori, I didn't live, I simply existed. To go back to being alone would be pure torture. I didn't want to go back to that meager existence. She became everything to me. And I could ruin her. I could truly break her. As much as I tried to change and as much as she changed me, a warped part of me still lived on.
I had always feared that the life I lived with Hinamori was just a dream. That it was just an illusion that I had made up and that someday, in some distant future I'd wake up to who I really was. I always had it, this tremendously dreadful feeling that I was divided within myself. That there were two sides to me and my real self wasn't the person I wanted to be. That feeling became more and more prevalent the more time I spent with Hinamori. The happier I became, the more fear I felt. The more I thought she'd find out my secret: that I was never her "Shiro-chan" to begin with, but someone else entirely. In reality, I probably wanted her goodness to wash away my heart of darkness. But instead it was the opposite. At first, that darkness started to recede, but soon in came back stronger than ever.
Vulnerable. That's how I began feel around her. I can't explain it and I can't justify it … that's simply the way it was. It was a response in the same way that we previously felt so comfortable around each other. I didn't want her to see this ugliness. Weakness I could reveal to her, but I felt that this wasn't something that could be forgiven or fixed. How do you tell the person who means everything to you that you're a monster? I felt infectious to the people I was around. At one time, I understood the gap between myself and them as something that could be overcome. But that gap widened and I felt alienated and unfit to be a part of them. So I distanced myself from everyone, especially Hinamori. Hinamori knew me as someone else. Something I convinced myself that bore no relation to my current self. She never knew about the thing residing within me. I didn't want it there, but there it was. Choking me, creeping closer and closer my heart.
At first, it was quite slow. I noticed things I never noticed before. I had negative thoughts, I saw intentions that never existed. I thought everyone was out to get me. I had horrible thoughts, horrendous nightmares, weird hallucinations. Whatever it was that was in me, previously it was just thoughts and pictures and dreams. In the past, this was as far as it went. But soon it wasn't just simple urges or thoughts, but it mutated into low whispers. Small and quiet at first, periodic even. But it didn't stay that way … it turned into an incessantly melody in my life . It wasn't like a voice in my head telling me what to do … instead it was like a steady stream of thoughts pouring into my brain. It did not have volume, but regardless, I heard it. I felt it. It was like a constant pair of eyes watching me, its thoughts constantly commenting. It drove itself deep inside my head and my heart. My erratic personality and mannerisms were directly related to the "voice" and how angry it made me on a particular day. As the voice grew more frequent, I started noticing even stranger things. I developed a disturbing ability to translate all my frustrations into a physical burst of energy. I was soon able to bestow the intensity of my hazardous emotions into the environment … my bewildered heart soon allowed me to turn everything else to ice if I so wished. How could I possibly protect Hinamori from myself? At some point in time, if I get angry enough, I could turn on the next person I see. And since the children in our house avoided me, the most available victim would be Hinamori. And I couldn't let that happen. Even if she stops smiling I can't allow her to become a victim.
How could I let this happen? I can't purge myself of this thing … this strange entity. And every day it got stronger, more influential, and made me more of an increasing danger to myself and others. I really didn't have a choice. No choice but to distance myself, no choice but to make her hate me, no other way to do penance for my sin of being who I am. It should have been easy to walk away, but it's not. I'm not a person who wants to make others suffer, but when it comes to Hinamori, I'm selfish. I'm always selfish, I'm always jealous, and I'm always unfair. I didn't want it to continue … I didn't want to go where this path was taking me. But I wanted to stay by her side. I wanted to stay in that house with her forever. I wanted to die being able to see her face. I wanted to tell her the things that I never had the courage to. I wanted to learn to express the things I never could. Like I said … I'm selfish. There's so much I'd left undone. Too many things I couldn't take back. I wanted her to take away all the ugliness in me, but that ugliness grew every day that I was around her. I tried to push it away, I tried to make it cease to exist, but there it was … it became a part of me. And the stronger it became, the more I changed. It was slowly, surely taking over my body, my mind, and my spirit. It was just beneath my skin, another face I tried to keep hidden away, a sin for all to see.
So I made my final decision. It had been three years since Hinamori brought me home with her. Eight months since my darkness returned. Four months since the last midnight meeting between Hinamori and myself. Two months since the beginning of my mentally separating myself. One month since I completely stopped associating with the other children. Two weeks since my vow to allow my body to rot like it rightfully should, and four days since Hinamori had last wept and begged me to return to normal. It was the first day of spring and I was dying as I rightfully should.