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"Hikigaya stay a minute," Hiratsuka-sensei requested. I sighed but did. "I heard what happened…" she elucidated once we were alone.

"Good because I really wanted to talk to you about it," I muttered.

"How are you holding up Hikigaya?"

"Every day is somehow worse than the last," I kept up. "I miss her."

"It'll get easier…"

"Hiratsuka-sensei?"

"What?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"You ought to show me a little respect."

"I called you sensei," I pointed out.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm trying to look out for you Hikigaya."

"Please go fuck yourself."

She gave me a dainty huff and offered me a cigarette. I took it and she lit me.

"Not worried about that playing hell with your meds?" She asked me.

"Not as worried as I am about the death of my sister impairing my mental state."

"Fair enough," she exhaled her own smoke. I took a long, long drag. "Tell me how you really feel, Hikigaya."

"I'm so fucked up. My sister was my rock. I want to talk to my sister about it. It's what I would always do. And I can't. And it's leaving me even more fucked up."

She just nodded. "How's the suicidal thoughts?"

"The law requires that I tell you I have no suicidal thoughts."

"But off the record?"

"I wanna die so fucking bad." I took another drag and crushed my cigarette. "More than at any other point in my life. I seriously was only getting better because of her. For her."

"What about Yuigahama and Yukinoshita?"

"What about them? Is that supposed to make this okay? Am I somehow supposed to be alright?"

"Well no but weren't you getting better because of them and for them as well?"

"Not half as much. Not a quarter as much. Not a percent as much."

"What are you going to do?"

"Suffer. For now I suffer. But the day school ends I'm throwing myself off a bridge. I think."

"What do you need?"

"For what?" I raised an eyebrow.

"To live, Hikigaya."

"From you? Please." I dismissed. "There's nothing you can do to help me. I burn."

"Your little sister wouldn't want you to kill yourself."

"Ouch," I murmured. "You really wanna help?" I asked her. She nodded. "Give me another cigarette." She snorted but did and lit me. I took a drag and exhaled smoke away from her on principle. "All I ever wanted was to see my little sister grown up and healthy and happy. Now I'm lost."

She looked at me with long eyes. "You can find other things. Other people."

"There aren't people like Komachi," I scoffed back. And it was true. There weren't.

"She was special…" Hiratsuka-sensei muttered. "But you're not alone."

"'Tis the last rose of summer left blooming alone."

"I don't understand. Are you the last rose of summer?"

"Komachi was the last rose of summer."

"What's that from?"

"A poem by Thomas Moore. It's replaying on repeat in my head. It's all I can hear. I can't think straight."

"Your grades have been suffering."

"I don't care."

"What about being valedictorian?"

"I don't care. Take it from me. Take it all from me. Everything except her. Not her. Never her." My eyes got wet. I blinked furiously and choked.

Sensei glanced at me. She finished her first cigarette while I let my second burn between two fingers.

"She really meant everything to you. Didn't she." Hiratsuka-sensei gave me this pitying look.

I just nodded. Nice and slow.

"You can get through this. If you want."

"I can't. I cannot. It was supposed to be me. I was supposed to step out into that cold night for a breath of fresh air first. Now without her I have nothing. I have no soul. Every facsimile I had of one was all because of her. For and by Komachi. I've run out of ways to express what she was to me." My cigarette burnt my finger. I crushed it into her ashtray. "Now Yui and Yukinoshita won't let me go. All I want is to go."

"What about your parents?"

"My parents can find my corpse. I want to be buried next to Komachi. Let me sleep."

"I would miss you, I think."

"I don't really care," I murmured. "What am I supposed to do? Bottle this up for another year? Or two? Or five? Or ten?!"

"It's certainly sink or swim time for you Hikigaya."

"I have no desire to swim. Not even for Yui or Yukinoshita. Not for my parents. Not for you. Save me Komachi. Lest I sink."

"More Shakespeare?"

"It's all I'm good for. References." I sighed heavily. "Thanks for the chat. This was nice."

"We're not done," Hiratsuka-sensei disagreed.

"Yeah we are," I shot right back.

"No. We're not. Sit tight a moment longer or I'm calling you an ambulance."

"Fine," I murmured. "What else is there to say? I am my mental illness. I am all the things wrong with me. And I can't stand life without her in it. Before it was a question. Before I had a shot."

"And now you don't?"

"Correct. And Yui and Yukinoshita want something from me. They want more than the little half life I can provide. I'm not capable of being there for them mentally or emotionally. Do the math. I just can't."

"You're stronger than you think you are. I won't lie to you. This is some hard bullshit. But you can lean on them." I flinched at her phrasing.

"I want to…" I breathed. "I don't know how."

"Tell them the truth. The whole truth. No double speak."

I sighed. "What do you want from me? Hiratsuka Shizuka? Shizu- if you will?"

She glowered at me for that and huffed a little. "I want to see you wanting to live. I want to see you happy and healthy. I know this won't be easy. Not for you. Not now. But I earnestly believe you can do it."

"Some offense meant…"

"Okay?" She granted.

"But what the fuck would you know?"

"Right… right. You won't hurt yourself?"

"The girls have my word I won't kill myself."

"And you intend to keep it?"

"I do. Yes," I said bitterly. "Promises are important. They matter to me."

"Do I matter to you?"

"A little. Not a percent as much as Komachi did but I doubt you're offended by my saying so."

She shook her head. "That's fair. What about your girls and Totsuka?"

"They matter to me too. They terrify me."

"How so?"

"Well I struggle to tell what's real and what's not," I elaborated. "I want to lean into those feelings but I begged Yui to break my heart and she denied me. Call me to deny that I loved them."

"Why would you want that?" She looked bewildered. I shot her an annoyed look. She rolled her eyes at me. "Besides the obvious."

"The obvious is brutal and all encompassing," I pointed out.

"Lean in Hikigaya Hachiman."

"For what? So I can suffer day in and day out for another year?"

"It doesn't have to be suffering. Loving them can feel good."

"It can also hurt real bad," I pointed out. "They make and unmake me in a way not dissimilar to the way my sister made and unmade me. That's not a comfortable process. Of course the process of loving them feels good. And that is deep and true. Or as true as anything is. But it also unravels me. And that hurts. And all of that is without getting into the death of my sister. Which burns and drowns me but refuses to outright kill me. Even though it should. Psychogenic death is possible. And I want it. I wanna go be with Komachi."

"You don't know that dying will reunite you with Komachi, though."

"It either will or it won't. It has to be better than this."

"It could be worse."

"I literally don't see how. I don't think death, whatever it really is, could be worse than the pain I'm in now. I burn."

"You already said that."

"It didn't suddenly stop being true," I pointed out. "I miss her. Now all I have is her fucking cat. And it looks at me like 'where is she?' And I have to let it know she's never coming back. And it reminds me that she is never coming back. And I feel her dying in my arms all over again. And I cannot stand it. Nothing I do lets me forget the way she choked on her last breath with her rib cage all crushed up. Nothing I do lets me forget trying to breathe for her or beat her heart for her. What am I supposed to do? What meaning does my life have now? She was the only reason I hadn't already ended reality. Now I lost her. And it's my own fucking fault. I was careless. And Komachi paid the ultimate price. What can I even do? What am I even good for? I was an instrument for her happiness. Now I'm nothing. Fuck me. Listen to me complain as though I was the one who fucking died. Who had their future robbed from them."

"You're allowed to feel things too. Your sister would want you to feel things."

"She would have wanted to live," I snarled.

"But now that she's gone what do you need?"

"Now that she's gone I need her more than ever," I flicked my fingers at Hiratsuka-sensei. "I can't have that. And it fucks me up."

"I need to know if you're going to be okay."

"I'm not," I bit. "You know that."

She said nothing.

"Well?" I pressed. "Do you or do you not know that?"

She said nothing still. She wouldn't meet my gaze.

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-WG