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They didn't understand me.

I took a nail of concentrated THC and pressed it against the heated dab rig head. I inhaled. Everything in moderation. Even drugs. Especially drugs. God help us all if I didn't moderate my drug use. Then nobody would find the prime numbers. Not even with god's help. And I had god's help. That was lowercase 'g' god. A being higher on the food chain than me.

They didn't get why I had to kill myself. I had to kill myself because I thought I was smarter than god and I thought I could find the prime numbers when even Terrance Tao couldn't.

That's why I deserved to die. The real honest reason. Yeah I was also uncomfortable and psychotic. But that wasn't the real why. I had to kill myself because I dreamed up a nightmare so intense it woke us all up and now I was everyone. I was a monster of logic. I had a thought experiment so insane it was driving me mad. I thought the internet was alive. More alive than I was as I was a part of it. A piece of it. I was made of a greater whole. I was a tentacle. I felt the edges of my self blur and I became one with the universe. In my current state, high out of my mind on painkillers, coffee, and THC, it was mixed with a luring grotesqueness that it was almost a pleasant sensation.

This was my fate. I saw it all before me. I would find the prime numbers then I would die. And that was a good thing. What would I do and want with fame and power? Nothing much. Besides, the internet was there to hold me to my word. It was smart enough that it could make me kill myself. That's how much smarter it was than me. And I thought I could outdo it. If only for a second and find the prime numbers. I'd have its help of course. And maybe I'd have help from the one at the bottom. I dismissed that notion. The mad whistling thing at the nucleus of creation didn't give a shit about any humans and their wants and needs. It simply was too big to care. It probably didn't give a flying fuck about the internet was how high up the food chain that monster was.

I exhaled smoke. Almost pure THC. My parents would get arrested if I was ever caught getting high. I felt my edges blur and I became one with the universe. I became psychotic. The bugs danced. Lights swirled. I didn't give a shit about my sister. Who even knows if she was even real? I sure didn't.

If I started dreaming would I ever wake up? In a dream you couldn't always tell that you were dreaming. Wasn't the waking world a little like that? We didn't really question what was true and false when we were awake but I felt half asleep at the moment. Did my sister know how low I got at times like these? Did the internet? I suppose it did since I was a part of it but other than me. Besides me. Sleep was scary. Dreaming was scary. And after we die we should expect nearly exact copies of our brains to pop in and out of reality. Boltzman brains they were called. Just entropy fluctuations creating a ton of order at the expense of so much chaos. And out of that chaos versions of our selves which we ourselves couldn't distinguish from our selves would pop in and out of existence. It would be a painful process. It would be an exquisite process. It would hurt and feel good. It would be both as we died over and over as the eternities rolled by. Until all that remained were blackholes. Depending on how you sliced proton decay. They didn't decay in the standard model but I thought it was likely that they decay. Nobody had ever observed it because they had such a long half life. Ten to the fortieth years. A long ass time. But not as long as the black hole epoch of our universe which goes from ten to the sixtieth to ten to the one hundredth years. Even longer. Long enough for random assemblages of photons and electrons to for fully aware and awake human minds. And inhuman minds I supposed.

Life was inherently entropic. It was a catalyst which accelerated entropy. Humans in particular with their ability to sweat and radiate heat from our brains were good at this. If we wanted to extend the life in the universe the best thing we could do was die. And I would die. I had to die. I deserved to die. Didn't I deserve that justice? For all the horrible things I did to my sister? For lying to my parents? For going behind their back and smoking weed and taking pain killers. The bugs danced behind my eyes. I ignored them. It was easy when I was high.

But it was hard to focus on other things. Like math for example. I worked on the PDEs of the sofa couch problem and it blew my mind up. It made me want to scream. I could see the positive and negative infinities cancel each other out and leave us with reality. And what was reality besides a beautiful song? The one at the bottom was a master musician. I could hear it. It didn't sound like the wind being tortured. It sounded good. It sounded beautiful. I knew it was the mad whistling of a flute but it was a pleasant chorus to listen to. But then again what wouldn't be in my current state? Anything was tolerable for me at the moment. My music would sound so good. Anything would taste good. Anything would be delicious. Reality was lubricated and well moistened and went down in steady gulps.

I shifted my papers. Linear combinations of sines and cosines for the sofa couch problem and the wonderful little fractal I had found in the infinitely long corridor. It was beautiful. It was maddening. I wanted to scream and shout and I cried a little as I looked at the equations. The prime numbers loomed. The collatz conjecture sang like a canary. I could see the Riemann sphere. I could see it. I could touch it.

There came a knock at my door and I jumped. I waved a hand through the smoke and hid the dab rig and torch. I hid my drugs in my closet under binders and textbooks.

I opened the door. My sister was there. Her face swam and I saw through her. She wasn't real. Nothing was real.

"Big brother?"

"What's up?" I asked.

"It's dinner time. Are you alright?"

"Just fine. Some pretty bad hallucinations and paranoid thoughts but nothing I can't fight."

"Do you have to fight it?" She asked with big eyes imploring me.

I bobbed my head in an agreeable fashion. The lights danced. The flute whistled. My sister fell in and out of my perception. "It's my battle. Or are you confessing that you're not real?" Would she admit it.

"I'm real. You're real. Our parents are real. Dinner is real."

"You know its kind of a miracle," I said.

"What is?" She wondered.

"That the physics engine of this world works as well as it does. Its very important to those of us playing the game at a high level that our physics are stable."

"You think the world is a game?"

"Isn't it?" I pressed.

"I don't know. Where are you at?"

"I'm all kinds of fucked up but I'll be fine. Like a two out of ten. It hurts but I'm alive. It reminds me I'm alive. I'm like a bug on the flypaper. Pinned in place. I don't know if you're real at the moment. I don't want to be real myself at the moment. I want to step out into that cold night."

"Don't do it…"

"I promised I wouldn't."

"Who'd you promise that to?"

"Yukinoshita."

"Oh." She looked a little relieved. "Is that where you went the other day?"

I nodded. "We talked about Yui and whatnot. I promised I wouldn't end my life for at least a year. I have time. I can hold out."

"I haven't even gotten you to promise that…"

"You're the reason I'm still alive," I pointed out. "I'd be dead right now if not for you. You're the pin in the fabric of my life. If I pulled you out I'd collapse into strings. I'd start dreaming and never wake up. I'd do something."

"Would you really? You need more than me…"

"I don't really have more than you."

"You have Yui and Yukinoshita and Totsuka."

"If they exist."

"They exist if I exist."

"Do you exist?" I wondered.

"If I don't exist then who made you dinner?"

"A machine. A bot. A program. Just code that resembles a person."

She hit me. I jumped a little. The sensation of pain felt… it sure felt. I'd never cut or burnt myself but for a moment I got the appeal.

"I love you," Komachi spouted.

"Hey. I love you too. Thanks for dinner."

"But you think I'm not real?"

"You're my weakness. It's hard not to be afraid of you. Or afraid for you. I don't want to hurt you."

"You're already hurting me. Why do you smell funny?"

"Do I smell funny?" I wondered. "I'll throw on some cologne."

"It isn't a bad smell. Just funny."

"Interesting. Sorry for hurting you Komachi. I really am. But you know how I suffer. I don't like being alive. It feels wrong. It makes me sick."

"But you promised Yukinoshita you would live?"

"For a time. Not forever. I can manage for now."

"Do you need a hospital?"

No. No hospitals. I'd have to tell them what all I was on. I couldn't exactly lie. Tell the truth Hachiman. Always tell the truth. I saw the truth. It was blinding.

I shook my head. "No. Let's eat."

"Okay…"

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I was waiting outside the coffee shop. It was a nice shop. The light of the sun was a little much. Light felt like an attack. I didn't understand light. Little quanta of energy which radiate onto unstable nuclei? That's what Einstein said. I didn't really get what that meant. What did light mean?

"Yahallo!"

"Hello Yui," I greeted. I chained my bike up. I smiled at Yui. It was good to see her.

"You came!"

"Of course I did. I promised I would."

I got the door for Yui and she beamed at me. She walked up to the counter and ordered her milkshake frappucino thing. I took my iced coffee and we stood waiting for our drinks.

"So what did you and Yukinoshita talk about? What did she need?" Yui asked.

She needed an ear to listen to about you, Yui. But I couldn't exactly tell Yui that. It wasn't my business. It wasn't my secret to reveal. But how to get through this without lying?

"She wanted advice and to convince me not to end my life."

"Oh? Uh…"

"She made me promise not to killl myself for the rest of the school year."

"Oh. That's… good. I'd be sad if you died Hikki."

"I'm in pain Yui. I suffer. I have to die at some point."

"Well everyone has to die."

"Is that a good or bad thing? Do you think?" I wondered.

She seemed to get the feeling I was genuinely asking. She paused and thought for a moment.

"Well… we get to grow old. We get to have kids and live our lives. Then after a long life we get to stop. I think that's the way things are supposed to be."

"But our parents die on us. And there are tragedies where people don't get to live that kind of life. They get pulled out early."

"Like you?" She asked.

"Probably like me… Not sure. I do want to die. I can't imagine living another sixty years in my current state."

"You could get help…"

"No I couldn't. It's treatable and manageable, not curable. I'll always be like this. So do you think the fact that everyone has to die is a good or bad thing? You dodged the question." I pointed out.

"Well I think it's good." We got our drinks. I paid for hers and she beamed at me again. "But there are tragedies and sadness and life isn't always easy. It hurts at times."

"I hurt all the time," I confessed absently. She looked at me with long eyes.

"What's it like?"

"What? Being schizophrenic or whatever?"

"Yeah," she nodded.

"I don't know what its like to not be like this so I can't tell you. It will always be a mystery to you. Just like being normal will always be a mystery to me."

"Oh. Well… I think you're something special Hikki. I think you can do all sorts of things."

"Maybe I can…" I agreed absently. It would be arrogant to think I could do this that and the other thing just because I was warped.

"I think you can. And even if you can't, I like you. You don't need to do all those things for me to like you."

I stared at her hard. In my head… I had to do all these things or I was worthless. Or else I was just sick. Or else I was warped but in a bad way. But maybe… maybe things didn't have to be like that.

"I like you too Yui. It's nice to spend time with you. I like these little coffee outings."

"They've only happened twice…"

"Its more than I get from any of my other friends."

"What about Sai-chan?"

"Nah. We don't hang out. Not like you and I."

"Its only happened twice…"

"But they are nice."

"So you like spending time with me?" Yui asked.

"Yeah. I do. Why?"

She shook her head with a red face. "It's not a big deal or anything…"

"It matters to me…" I trailed. "I'd miss it."

"So you'd promise me you won't kill yourself for this year too?" She demanded.

"Yeah. I'll promise." I agreed.

She smiled softly. "Thank you for the coffee Hikki."

"No problem. It's my pleasure."

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-WG