It was late, clearly. Long shadows were falling in through the windows of HQ, and almost all of the employees had departed for the day. Only one nameless programmer remained, scrambling at his keyboard with one foot impatiently trying to walk away. Luigi felt a sudden surge of affection for him, despite not knowing his name and not having ever noticed him before. But that programmer was a bit like himself, he thought; harried, and unrecognized, and almost certainly wanting to be someone else.

He realized that Pit had stopped walking and was watching the man, curiously, from a few cubicles off. Pit cleared his throat. "Ah, Mr. Sodeyama?"

The programmer jumped and whirled, but when he saw Pit, he clutched his chest and sighed, slumping back down. "For a minute I thought you were Mr. Sasaki, come to yell at me about overtime."

Pit chuckled. "I think he actually dipped early today. Looked sick. It's the weather."

"Oh. Poor guy." The relief evident on Mr. Sodeyama's face undercut his words, however.

"This is Misato Sodeyama," Pit said to Luigi, who had been standing aside awkwardly and doing his best to remain invisible. "He agreed to shirk his duties today and assist me with a project instead." Pit turned back to Misato and shifted his feet. "But, ah, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you haven't completed it?"

Misato turned red, and Pit added quickly, "I don't mean that underhandedly, of course. You've done more for me already than I probably should have allowed. I was asking more just…for the sake of knowing."

"In that case, Pitto, it's not done," Misato sighed, turning back to his computer. "But if you give me another hour, I should have it polished up passably well."

"Oh please, Mr. Sodeyama. Don't break your back on my account!" Pit grimaced. "It's getting late. Go home and finish the program later." But Mr. Sodeyama ignored him save from the holding of a finger up, and Pit sighed. "In that case, I'll take Luigi here, and we'll be in the AV room. I've wanted to have a talk with him anyway."

Misato nodded hastily, fingers clacking musically against the tired keyboard. Pit glanced regretfully at him before stepping sideways out of the cubicle and ushering Luigi down the hall.

"What was he programming for you?" Luigi asked, but Pit shushed him impatiently.

"You'll see it when he's done."

It was the most silent either of them had likely ever seen the AV room. Normally abuzz with left-on gaming consoles by designers and programmers who didn't have enough work to do, it was now dark, and still and cold. The furniture was badly beaten; spendthrift directors preferred, understandably, for their budgets to go towards powerful technology over creature comforts. It did not make tremendous difference to Luigi or Pit, who were both numb to everything in the physical world, as well as both lacking in an eye for aesthetics. They arranged themselves and stared silently out into the blackness. Flecks of noise danced there as if it were an overdeveloped photograph.

"Mario's noticed, you know," Pit said after awhile. "Peach and Daisy, too. Maybe even Yoshi. If you were going to insist upon slipping into a self-destructive spiral of loathing and despondency, the least you could have done was a better job of hiding it from the people who loved you."

Pit felt a clench of guilt after having said that. Luigi had buried his face in his palms and shook, and Pit realized that this was something that had been weighing on him since he had started nursing this misguided plan.

"Listen," he said, "That came off kind of harsh, maybe. My point's just that your life isn't just your own. You haven't got any right to try and end it."

"I won't, then!" Luigi finally snapped, and he caught Pit far enough off guard to make him start. "I won't, then! I won't! But that doesn't make anything any better, now, does it, Pit? It doesn't change the fact that I've got a joke of a career. It doesn't change the fact that I'm miserable." He stopped and focused his eyes in the darkness. "It doesn't change the fact that I'm a loser."

Pit was getting tired. Luigi's despair was draining, even for him. He curled himself on the ratty AV couch and shivered despite not feeling the cold. "You don't know how good you've got it," he muttered.

"No offense, Pit, but coming from you that means next to nothing."

He knew exactly what Luigi was getting at, but he also knew that it was only an attempt to incite him into leaving, and he wouldn't give him the satisfaction. He chomped his tongue in the darkness and had to content himself with cursing Luigi in his head. One measly sequel, sure. And the release was American-only, sure. But I'm not the one trying to off himself, am I? So I guess I must have it better that you seem to think, mustn't I?

They stewed silently like that for a long time. Out of the air, Luigi eventually said, "To never have existed." And when Pit failed to gratify him with a response, he interpreted it as interest and elaborated, "That's what would have been best. No worries about betraying anyone then. And spared from a lifetime of disappointments."

"That," Pit replied, "Is your stupidest idea to date. And I'm counting the whole thing about trying to drown yourself in a puddle, too."

"It's a good idea," Luigi said, but Pit snorted.

"You wouldn't be spared from anything, you moron. How could you possibly? You wouldn't even be."

"You're actually trying to argue," Luigi said slowly, "That a lifetime of pains, failures, and unfulfilled frustrations is better than never having lived at all?"

"Yes."

"And you call me the crazy one," Luigi sniffed. "That is the most callous thing that I have ever heard anyone suggest."

Pit yawned, and he stretched his wings. The tips of the feathers brushed against Luigi's nose, and he was annoyed. "There's more good than bad, Luigi. And that's true for virtually everybody. You don't know how to see the good things, though, and that's really what's so tragic."

Luigi stiffened. "Well, you're still crazy."

"I can live with that."

There was a knock at the door then, and an instant later it cracked open and a thin line of pallid light darted into the room. Misato Sodeyama was there, leaning against the door frame and squinting into the darkness. "Pitto?" he whispered, "Are the two of you still awake?"

Pit sighed, and he roused himself reluctantly. "Yes, Mr. Sodeyama. We are. Is the program ready?"

As a response, Misato flashed a jewel case at him. The sickly light from the hallway caught the edges of the disc and shone in iridescent color. Pit nodded, took a moment to blink himself fully lucid, and then he took Luigi's wrist.

"You do need to see this," he said, weary. "And I promise you it was worth the wait."