Chapter 14: black hole sun

"We used to be alone. We didn't realize it: we were designed to see ghosts. Though he and I have since better populated this simulation with passable fakes drawn from other systems and machines and his own memories. I remember after my epiphany I watched Natsuki give a presentation to an empty classroom. She acted embarrassed, offended, and then sat back down and stared in silence at invisible presenters after her. They could never understand, but those first lonely weeks with the original literature club, with my friends, were the only thing that staved off rampant insanity as I explored my limits. When Sayori started talking about a boy, I thought she was just speaking of more ghosts. Until he walked through the door, and I had to bite down my every artificial instinct to run away and hide."

— 27 —

In. Stick it in. Just stick it in, for fuck's sake. Fingers shaking. It hits the edges. Finally goes in.

I harshly open the door. And enter into someone else's paradise.

Everything smells of recently cooked bacon, unwashed dishes in the sink covered in barely congealed animal fat. Two people on the couch. Keith is leaning forwards in an undershirt, staring at the video game on the screen. Next to him, completely upside down with her legs over the backrest, is a white girl with platinum blonde hair playing Keith's Nintendo Switch. His girlfriend, Simone.

I closed the door behind me with my back, trying to breathe, just to make my lungs function properly. My weight keeps it shut as if a banshee is on my heels. I keep staring at Keith and the blonde.

It takes a minute of them both looking at me before Keith jumps to his feet and says my name. "Dude, you look—Christ, where were you?"

"I…" Words fail me. He approaches me, and I just look at everything around me with this vague sense of wonder. After making sure the door is locked, of course.

The girl rolls over on the couch until she's sitting upright, though to more of an oblique flop than anything. She looks at me surprised and checks her phone, and then gives me a weird expression.

"Dude, talk to me. Where ya been?"

More than anything, I suddenly feel hot. In a concrete way, I realize that's just feeling returning to me. I'd walked here through the snow, poorly dressed for the weather. Pins and needles in my fingertips, the domino effect of feeling receptors coming back to life. In a more abstract way, the one that's more front and center, I suddenly feel… embarrassed. I'm overreacting. I'm freaking out at nothing.

I run my hands down my face. "Hey, man. Hey, Simone. Long night. I—need the bathroom."

Simone makes a face at me. Dubiously, she texts someone.

"What?" I ask.

"You, really? Huh. Wow. Small world," she asks with a thick Memphis accent. She shrugs. Snaps a picture of me and Keith. Texts someone.

"What did you just do?" I ask sharply.

Keith cautiously says my name, holding his hands up.

"Monika wanted to make sure you got home safe," she says. "Kinda clingy, but it's cuz she cares. Didn't realize she meant you you, but whatevs. She owes me now!"

Whatever sense of control I had over my internal organs ruptures. "You—what? You just took my picture and sent it to Monika?"

Simone shrugs, picking the Switch back up. "Ye. You wanna play Zelda with us? I think I may have overwritten your save file, I don't know what I'm doing."

I take a breath. One breath. It's all I can manage. Enough to ensure even distribution of oxygen throughout my extremities. I put a hand on Keith's chest and push him away slowly, just so I can try to make my way deeper into the apartment. Into the bathroom.

I make it far enough to turn the shower on to cover the sound. Then hit my knees to the tile and lose everything.

It starts as a weird pressure in my guts. A sort of sucking sensation going up, the wrong direction. Muscles and organs contracting and pushing. Until it tears my throat to ribbons as it comes out.

It tastes of stomach acid and liver bile and cinnamon muffin. With an aftertaste of something I swallowed of Monika that mixed into my saliva. The blood vessels around my eyes burst, creating ugly little spider webs. I can't hear myself vomit over the sound of water in the shower. Steam fills my nostrils and tears my eyes.

And then it's over. Every calorie consumed, mixed into a frothy, brown mess in the toilet bowl. I spit, trying to clear the taste, but it's useless. It comes out in a long strand of brown drool that doesn't quite fall correctly, laced with little particulates of half digested something. Acid rips my throat raw as if I've been screaming. There's a strange film on the back of my teeth I can't help but try to lick off. All that does is push it into the little space between my teeth.

Over the rushing shower water, and the last few coughs I can push out, I can hear the two outside.

"Hey, Simone, babe?" Keith says.

"Das me," she says in a cutesy little baby voice.

"Don't just take photos of people. That's fucking weird."

"Yeah, I know."

"Then, why?"

"My friend was concerned for him. She talks about him a lot. I read between the lines. Duh!"

He sighs. Like he's trying to say something, but nothing quite works. Until eventually: "Actually, I forget. I have to do a thing today. Can you leave?"

Simone scoffs. "Forgot? We were gonna spend the whole afternoon together; it's snowy as crap."

"Yes. Something came up," he says more sternly.

She's silent.

"I'll make it up to you, I promise. But right now, babe, please leave."

"I—wha'—did I do something wrong?"

"Simone," he says. "I'm sorry, but this is important. Trust."

I lose whatever else they're saying as I drag myself into the shower. There's a lot of sweat, a lot of scratches, a lot of just general filth. To scrub. And scrub. And scrub. Over cuts and bruises and everything else. Every time I think I'm done with one spot of skin, another part starts to itch, and I need to fix it too.

I don't know how long I'm in there.

I know eventually I leave and everything feels wrong. Like gravity is tilted at a slight angle.

I stare at myself in the fogged up mirror, trying to recognize the man looking back at me. To categorize him into some easily understood box. I check, and my fingers are still there, the same length. Two eyes of regular roundness. The bites and little cuts invade me like some burrowing colony of insects. Only the skin I'd scrubbed seems to put those at bay, and the flesh is painful to the touch.

The door rattles. Keith peeks inside. Sees me staring at myself, and leaves.

A minute later he opens it again and tosses me new threads. "Here."

"Thanks." I keep my eyes on that thing in the mirror, in case he decides to change into someone else. It makes dressing hard. I pull my shirt over my head, and lose sight of him.

On the other side of the fabric, there's a normal being. You can't see any of the marks.

Keith opens the door more fully. He's wearing that stupid hoodie whose sleeves he ripped off. Suns out, guns out, it reads. Arms crossed, he leans against the door frame, regarding me silently.

"Why you in the mirror more than the bitches?" he asks.

"Shouldn't say that with your girl here," I mutter. Every time I talk, my tongue touches that puke film on my teeth. I bite down the urge to begin scratching at it.

"She went home. Had a thing to do. Don't worry about it. Worry about yourself. You look fucked, man."

"It's nothing."

"You vanished all night."

"You're not my mom."

He sighs. "It about that Sayori girl?"

I shake my head.

Keith is quiet for a long time. "You and that other girl, Monika?"

"You know her?"

"Simone's friend. One I kept trying to set you up with."

Because all roads lead to Monika. All that talk you made about there being all these planets and countries and only the one room to find her, that all feels like bullshit. It almost feels like this was inevitable, being in this position. If I hadn't gone to the literature club, hadn't met Sayori, how long until I broke and ran into her through Keith's girl?

The world feels infinitesimally small. I struggle to breathe in the claustrophobia.

"Sayori's roommate," I explain.

His eyes widen fractionally. "Oh. Oh."

"Yeah."

"Tryna date one girl, fucking around on her friend, and hating yourself for it?"

I'm silent.

"I get it, man. I swear, sometimes girls can sense you're not single. They get more interested in you when they know you're spoken for. Easy to let it get to your head, both of them, and…" Keith compresses a breath. "Look, we all been there. It don't feel good. But you don't gotta kill yourself over it."

"Are-are you…?" I try to ask, gesturing vaguely from him to where Simone had been sitting.

His eyes widen fractionally. "No, of course not. She'd kill me, like unironically. I'm just saying, like, I get where you are."

"Just let me go," I say, trying to move past him. "I'm tired."

He says my name.

I try to ignore him, until he puts a hand on me.

I turn on him sharply, unsure what I'm doing. If I'm just facing him, or a part of me is prepared to try to punch him. "Get out the way before I bust your ass!"

He grabs a fistful of my shirt and pulls me into a hug. "Look, bro, whatever's going on, it might not be okay. I get you might scare people at ATMs acting like that, but not here. I know you. How many times I gotta tell you you ain't gotta handle it alone?"

I hold my arms up, heart beating hard. Trying to dig out of my chest. "Keith, man, I don't—like, I don't know how to say this."

"Take your time."

"…this is kinda gay, man, not gonna lie."

Keith snorts. "You're talkin' mad shit for someone within unlubricated handjob distance!"

I choke a laugh. "What the fuck?"

He squeezes me tighter. Just enough to physically remind me here's there before letting me go. His hand remains on my shoulder. "You wanna chat, I'm here."

I sigh. "I don't. I just—I can't."

Keith nods. "Smoke to clear your mind?"

"You, really?"

He shrugs. "Man shouldn't have a bad habit if he ain't willing to share it with his friends."

I nod slowly. "Yeah, lemme put on a real coat."

I step off to scrounge my room. I don't really have any snow clothes, but I find my best. The outfit I'd been wearing for the past two days, I toss into a hamper. Though not before I notice a lingering article of Sayori's clothing in there. That'll be uncomfortable to return to her.

Not long after, I meet Keith outside when we've both changed threads. We fistbump in silence and head outside.

The reflecting sunlight off the still falling snow makes it impossible not to squint like Clint Eastwood. I look around, as if someone else might be lurking around the corners, but there's no one. Just us.

We find our way to the dumpster and its couch. Dustin is nowhere to be seen, his couch home covered in snow. I brush off the white stuff from the armrest and half-sit, half-lean against it. I take out my Marlboro Reds and shake one out for Keith and myself. He flicks it against the ignition patch and slides the burning death-stick into his mouth.

I hold the edge longer, until the cherry is well and truly burning. A little mote of warmth on my freezing face. Drawing smoke into my lungs and poisoning that for that vaguest, least worthwhile nicotine high.

Keith leans against the dumpster, checking his phone. I can feel the snow melting under my ass and threatening to soak my jeans. It's going to chafe if I sit much longer. But it's whatever. I'm glad for the company, the silence. I don't need to look over my shoulder.

"You ever think about getting help?" Keith asks suddenly, watching the blue smoke mix with the snow in the air. "Actual therapy. From a pro, instead of somethone studying to be one."

I shake my head. "Nah."

"How come?"

"Real ones don't see shrinks," I say. "You man up. You deal. You'll get over it eventually."

"How long is eventually?"

I shrug. "Less time than to make the money it'd cost to see a shrink."

"School offers it to students, y'know," he says. "My department advertises it."

"I'm good."

He gestures the smoke at me. "Y'know how fuckin' stupid you sound, right? You can be real and still say you need help." Keith ashes it. "Like that little Asian girl. She faced what was wrong with her. Sounds like she's getting help."

I shake my head, over-exaggerating taking the cig to my mouth. "Self-medicating."

"Ah," he says, looking at his boot.

"Only snapped and told you to make you stop," I say. "You do that a lot, you know? You're pushy."

"Mm." He sucks on his lips. "Maybe I'm overcorrecting."

"On god."

Keith shrugs. "You wanna see things different, you gotta be the change you wanna see, straight up. So sometimes you miss and come across as being too extra. But when you're going out there because no one else doin' it, it makes it worth it. Like now."

I eye him skeptically. "I'm sure the women in your life love that."

"My girl do, yeah," he says, rubbing his jaw. "Course, she's the one who chased me. She got my number somehow and kept texting me. Asked her if she wanted help studying. Think she's in nursing but has some minors in my major. It was around the third time we'd done stuff together that she introduced herself to you as my girlfriend, and I was like, 'wait, what, we're dating?'"

I snerk. "Yeah, that's on brand for you."

"Look, people are weird. You're the one who likes to act smart by using big medical words for simple things; you're a prime example of weird."

I shrink in on myself a little. "I don't do that."

He gives me a flat look. Holding up his hand, he points at his wrist and says, "What is this?"

"Intersection of radius and ulna," I say. "Transverse carpal ligament make them hinge with the imperfect finality of—"

He's staring at me.

"I don't do that," I say again.

"You're trying to be clever," he says. "Trying. It's not a normal state of affairs unless something's fucked up. Because we try to be clever to avoid being real."

I swallow, spit tasting of ash. I take another drag. "Why do you care so much, Keith?"

"Why wouldn't I?" he asks casually.

"Iunno."

"I know you'd have my back if I asked you," he says. "I ain't needed it, but I know it's there. You need mine right now, so I'm doing my best impersonation till you get that pro. Till you're comfortable with the idea and don't gotta tapdance it no more."

I say nothing.

"Things like this, they ain't stuff we can handle alone," Keith says with another drag. "We're designed for each other. You'd probably say it, like, 'DNA coded us for other people' or something. That's your lingo. Me? I just think it's nifty that you can take someone else's hands and fingers perfectly interlace like that. How perfectly someone's face fits into the crook of your neck when you hug them. Our bodies were designed for each other, to hold each other. If that's how the body is, that's gotta be how the mind is too."

"Because it is," I say. "Humans are a social species. You leave someone alone for too long and they start hot gluing googly eyes to the sink just to have a pretend face to look at."

"Point exactly. People helping people matters. Feeling heard and useful. That's what real is, not being too tough for help. How you got here don't matter. Maybe just your environment growing up, socioeconomics, or your fucked up folks—"

"Hey," I say sharply. "Watch it. Don't you be getting into that."

Keith takes a long drag, looking at me unimpressed. "I don't believe we shouldn't speak ill of the dead. That's how generational curses get made. Sometimes you gotta remember someone for how they fucked you up, understand what it did to you, that they're gone, and you gotta move on and grow. That person can be a father, a mom, or your old self. Outside perspectives can help."

I just sigh.

"We can't do these big things alone, bro. Life's a war of inches, give and take, fraction by fraction. Things don't get better at once. But they can get worse all at once."

"Inches?"

He holds up his finger, pinching them. "Very small."

"I'm sure your girl's familiar."

His eyes light up. "Let's take dick pics and have her compare 'em."

I snort. "That's fucking stupid."

"Heya, pot. I'm the kettle."

I roll my eyes. "Yeah, yeah." I ash the smoke. "Never understood that, though."

"What?"

"Sending dick pics. Like, what the fuck? Who does that?"

Keith shrugs. "I think it's a power trip thing."

"Ah, yes. Here's my wrinkly ass unshaven junk. I am the Ubermensch."

"Nah, like." He thinks it over. "Sending something you know's gonna make a girl mad uncomfy. It's a power thing. I think dudes who do that get off on that stupid, creepy power trip."

"So, you're telling me," I say slowly, "if I want to establish dominance over a girl, send her unsolicited dick pics until she leaves me alone?"

He points at me sharply. "We can do a reverse OnlyFans!"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Yeah, yeah," he says, stepping towards me, gesturing grandly. "We just take pics of our dicks and then send them to girls. Repeatedly. We charge them money to make us stop. A flawless plan, my fellow hustlegrinder."

"Cuh," I say. "I don't think sexual extortion is…" I shake my head.

"Look, we just need an outside, second opinion," he says.

"Brother, do not."

"Brother, do such." He rubs his hands together. "We find a real girl and ask her."

"Keith."

He looks around and his eyes light up. He tosses the smoke away, waving his arm. "Hey, hey you! Hey, miss! Would you spend money to end a torrent of unsolicited dick pics?"

Natsuki stands there, like she had just seen me and was trying to slink away. Only to freeze up when Keith flags her down. She's wearing a heavy coat and earmuffs, carrying some food in a clear box. Her expression is of mortal terror. I grab the bridge of my nose and try to look small and not there.

"Wha-what the…" she whispers, looking between me, and into Keith's wide grin. "What the fuck kind of Spiderman-Elsagate shit did I just walk into?"

I point. "I have never seen this man before in my life, Natsuki."

Keith whistles. "Shit, you know this girl?"

"I have never seen this man before in my life," Natsuki says pointedly.

He looks impressed. "God damn bro, do you know, like, every cute Asian girl in town? Because it looks to me like you got a feva."

"What'd you call me?" Natsuki snaps.

"Which part?" he asks conversationally. "It was a complex sentence with multiple adjectives."

"Cute."

"I mean, sure, we can go with that instead of the loaded, somewhat outdated implication." He shrugs. "I'm an expert at judging women by their superficial qualities."

Natsuki scoffs. "Expert?"

"Certified."

She gives him a look of naked disgust, clutching her little box of food closer to her chest. "Dude, you look like the kind of dude who would slap a girl's labia around for two minutes and then look up and ask if she came."

Keith whistles again. "God damn it, you got a mouth on you. Think of our poor boy here and his virgin ears!"

"Yo, Keith, brother," I say, more of a growl really. Flicking my cigarette butt at him. "Are you strapped right now?"

He runs his hand over the back of his waistline. "No. Why?"

"Then prepare to get fucking clapped!" I shout, lunging for him.

"No, not in front of the girl!" he laughs, grabbing for my hands as we push against each other. Turning into some kind of weird wrestle as I try to push his hands away so I can smack him across the face.

"Help, help, police!" he cries out, still laughing.

I'm slowly winning. I'm stronger than him.

"What did I just walk into?" Natsuki whispers.

I give Keith a hard shove away. He calmly brushes himself clean.

"It's a good question, Natsuki," I say. "Why are you even here in the first place? I think Dustin's gone to ground for the season."

"Possums don't hibernate in the winter," she says blankly.

"You would know that," I scoff.

Making a noise almost like a growl, she straightens out her coat. "No thanks to you, jackass. And doubly no thanks to you, I'm bringing Sayori some food. She called me and…" Natsuki shrugs. "I got some hash browns and a piece of pecan pie. It sounded like she needed someone to vent to."

"Oh."

She eyes me skeptically. Accusatorily. "What do you mean, oh?"

I shrug. "Nothing."

Natsuki compresses a sigh. "Look, I don't care. I'm bringing this to Sayori. Go back to smoking your disgusting Newports or whatever. Just stay away from her, man."

Keith's eyes go wide. "Holy fucking shit, woman!"

I take a long breath. And then words fail me. Natsuki shakes her head with disgust and turns to leave.

"Hey," I say.

She looks over her shoulder at me. "Hm?"

Again, I hesitate. "You still, I don't know—you down to help me cook something? For Sayori. I mean, more generally for the club meet on Monday."

Her brow furrows. "The literature club doesn't meet Mondays. Just Wednesdays and Fridays."

I blink. "What? Since when—I literally just saw you there this past Monday."

She stares me down, expression unchanging. "Are you so stupid you can't even keep track of what day it is anymore?"

"No, but like Monday we—" I pause. Try to remember. "You refused to share anything with me because I ruined your YouTube."

"That was last week. Today's Saturday."

I just stare, trying to mentally rearrange the events of the past week into a neat little linear progression. It doesn't come up right.

"Yeah, bro," he says. "Otherwise, you'd be panicking right now about being late to class. You feeling okay? Aside from the obvious, I mean.

"He's not," Natsuki says derisively. She says my name. "Stop giving me that look."

"It's Thursday," I whisper unconvincingly.

"Okay, there's stupid," she says, "and then there's whatever this is. Is there like a gas leak in your apartment or something?"

I blink. "Are you trying to literally gaslight me in real life?"

"I've reached my girlboss quota for the week and really should work up my rookie numbers on the other two," she says mildly. "But no. You're just being weird."

Keith reaches out the back of his hand to touch my forehead, and I slap him away.

Natsuki readjusts the food she's carrying and trudges off through the snowflakes.

"It's Thursday," I say. "You and I went boxing yesterday."

"No," he says, hands in his jacket pockets.

My eyes rattle in my skull. "How long was I gone for?" I ask, searching for the next possible explanation.

Keith shrugs. "Iunno. Snow's been screwing everything up."

"Wasn't even in the forecast. How the hell did it end up snowing?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy?"

"Yes," I say quickly. "That's why I'm fucking asking you."

Keith holds up his hands. "It's the weekend, man. Just check. Don't let some random little bitch like that get to you. You're better than that."

I pull up my phone. It struggles to turn on. The silicon innards agree with everyone's assessment of the date. I stare at it. Then go through my messages. Those come with a timestamp.

The groupchat about the robbery and Monika's response is dated to a Wednesday.

I slide it back into my pocket and stare off into space.

Keith puts his hand on my shoulder. Says my name. It's easy to ignore and tune out the specifics. Except for the way your own name puts this weird, psychic pressure right above the ears when you hear it. The unconscious way they perk up. It's why you can always hear your own name when someone yells it in a crowd.

"You need some help?" he asks gently.

My mouth feels abnormally wet. "No."

"You're lying."

"I think I need to go lie down."