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August thirty first and september first: Though these days are in sequence, no other two moments in time are as clearly divided as these. There lies the boundary line between the regular and the irregular. When weekdays and weekends cross paths, that is where I wish to close the curtains on the story of Hachiman Hikigaya. The period at the end of the holiday has so much bad energy stored up, it's bad enough to take the whole world to the worst ending. That's if this fucking vraylar didn't take me there first.
And so that day, school began again.
I rode my bike to school easily enough despite the existential angst I felt. It didn't hamper my muscles or anything. It just made it so that I was hallucinating pain all the time.
As you might expect since I had been going to this school for over a year, I saw more than a few familiar faces among the crowd. Although their faces were the only familiar thing about them. I might catch sight of Tobe or run into Ebina but I wouldn't talk with them, and we wouldn't greet each other.
I wouldn't really say that the summer was an illusion. It was just that camp had been a temporary, exceptional situation, and that was the only reason we had talked. There's a different sort of socializing and a different sense of distance when you're away from school. I know my place when it comes to all that.
I was in a lot of pain. I'd had bad dreams the night before. I'd woken up to sleep paralysis and had to crawl to my shower. It wasn't great. My vision was clouded. I could hardly see. It felt like light was attacking me in all its forms.
In my field of vision, I caught sight of a certain figure standing that I surely wouldn't forget. She stood on the glass walled staircase, and even with the sunlight streaming in and the heat rising, she radiated a frigid and awesome air that permitted no one to approach.
It was Yukino Yukinoshita.
When my foot tapped on the stairs, she noticed my presence and turned around. "Oh, it's been a while."
"Yeah. Long time no see." I was already used to having her talk down to me.
Yukinoshita ascended the stairs at the same pace as me, as if she were matching her pace to mine. So the distance between us, two steps, still remained.
"Hikigaya." She spoke to me without turning around. I replied with only a nod. It took Yukinoshita a few seconds to take my silence as a response. It was all I could manage in my current state. She continued, "so you met my sister?"
I heard her voice clearly despite all the other students coming and going around us. "Yeah, I happened to run into her."
I wondered about my voice. I wondered if she heard me clearly. Before I could find out the stairs ended.
At the point where we would p[art ways after the gap between us closed, Yukinoshita paused, "um…"
"Is the club starting up again today?" I passed her, glancing back over my shoulder at her.
She seemed at a loss, not knowing what to say for once. "Y-yes… that's the plan…"
"Roger. I'll see you then." I started walking again before I was even done but I wasn't in the mood. I could smell my own skin. It smelled awful. I hated being awake and alive.
I could feel her cold gaze on my back and I rather liked it. I sensed only that she was about to say something and heard the sound of a swallow. Still I was unwilling to stop.
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I entered the club room. Yukinoshita was waiting for me there with her book.
I still had a couple of days before my appointment with doctor Farrell. She already told me to quit the vraylar by email. But it was too late. It was in my system. I had to ride it out.
"So…" Yukinoshita started.
"I started anitpsychotics," I cut her off. She tried to act uninterested but I could tell I had her full attention.
"And how's that going?" She wondered.
"Miserable," I started my figures. "These drugs are awful. I prefer my own cocktail. But that's not very legal. Opioids and THC. My parents found the drug bag and the consequences are this."
She glowered at me at the mention of my own spice. 'Should you really be abusing drugs?' I heard it loud and clear. But yes. Yes I should.
I continued my work on the sofa couch problem. I thought it likely that there was an infinite number of valid sofa couches and and an accompanying infinite number of valid rotational paths.
"You seem the same," she managed.
"I'm not. It hurts. I'm hallucinating pain. I have to keep doing it until this batch runs out in my system."
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
I waved her off. I held my chalk in my hand and started writing the linear combination of sines and cosines. "It just hurts but aside from that I'm fine. Gives me sleep paralysis and night terrors but I'm not sleeping right now. Am I?"
She must have got the sense I was genuinely asking.
"No. You're awake."
"That's what I'm afraid of. So? Something you wanted to talk to me about?" I wondered.
"Yes. My sister."
"She seemed the same as when I met her with you. Fake and wrong and incomplete."
"Oh is that all?"
"Pretty much. I'm sure you know. You know what she's like. She makes me uncomfortable. She's so twisted. She's brutal like us but at the same time I was trying new drugs. Not the same batch I'm on now. What I'm currently on hurts. It surpasses existential angst and becomes nausea. I'm sentient and it makes me nauseous."
"Is it really so bad?"
"It really, really hurts. My psychiatrist emailed me to quit the drug but I still have some in my system. My sleep schedule is fucked and that's the most important thing to mood disorders and schizoaffective disorder. Like mine."
"Is that the diagnosis?"
"Seems to be. But you're sister? What were you worried about?"
"Who says I was worried about anything?"
"Okay. You weren't."
"You don't believe me?" She demanded.
"I don't have the energy to fight you on it. If you say you weren't then you weren't."
"I wasn't." She confessed.
"Okay."
"What did she say about me?" She wondered.
"She thought it was adorable how you live in her shadow but that's about it."
"Was that all?"
"Oh. And you hit me with your car."
"I see."
"I don't blame you for it." I followed up.
"I know." She seemed to agree.
"Good."
She hesitated for a moment.
"Do you… do you like my sister?" She wondered.
"Not so much. I prefer you."
"Do you really?"
"I do," I confirmed. "Wouldn't take much in her case."
"You really dislike her."
"I really do."
"But you… you like me?"
"I really do," I repeated.
"Why?"
"You're honest. You look out for me in your own way. You care. It's sweet."
"I am not sweet."
"If you say so," I made it clear I disagreed.
"I'm not."
"Okay," I made it clear she was wrong.
She huffed and looked to the side.
Yui walked in. "Yahallo."
"Hello Yui," I managed.
Yukinoshita nodded.
"Aren't you going to tell her?" Yukinoshita asked.
"She already knows. All about everything but how this most recent batch is treating me," I answered.
"Oh? How is this batch treating you?" Yui wondered.
"Bad. In a word, it's bad."
"I thought you were doing fine…" Yui trailed off.
"I was doing fine. I started a new batch. New new. The olanzapine didn't work so I started something called vraylar."
"Oh. I see." Yui managed.
"It hurts but I'm coping," I clarified. "It feels like light is attacking me."
"Light is attacking you how?" Yukinoshita wondered.
"All light. It feels like I'm in a man in the middle attack by God. It hurts. I'm not used to it. It really hurts."
"Well I'm sure it will make you feel better eventually…" Yui tried.
"Maybe eventually. But for now I'm hurt and I should act like it. I can barely focus."
"You seem okay…" Yui trailed again.
"I hurt." I confessed soberly.
"Well stick with it. The meds will eventually be better than you treating yourself," Yukinoshita leveled.
"Hey I doubt it."
"Don't. Stick with it and you'll feel progress."
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-WG
