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Komachi and I met up early Saturday morning.

"Any plans for the day, big brother?" She asked me.

"Just meeting Yui for coffee."

"Oh? All alone? Just the two of you?"

"You're welcome to come," I shot back.

"No no. Komachi has to study. But you have fun with her."

Sneaky devil. Don't think I don't see you, Komachi. It isn't like between Yui and I. Not that I knew for sure what it was like. My relationship with Yui was deeply confusing.

Yeah I knew she liked me. And I knew I liked her. But there was this unspoken thing for an unpopular guy and a popular girl. She was well liked. She didn't need some crusty weird looking motherfucker hanging off her like that.

"You know it's not like that," I pointed out to Komachi. "Don't make it into something it isn't. That's inappropriate."

"Oh so you never think about Yui-san?"

"That's doubly inappropriate and costs you Komachi points."

"I'm not hearing a 'no'."

"You're certainly not hearing a 'yes' either, though."

I did think about Yui. I thought about touching her and tasting her skin. I thought of what it would be like to kiss those full lips and to dance in the mystery. The dance being the point all along.

I thought about trusting her. Trusting her to be real. I thought of making that leap of faith that she wasn't just some being cooked up to torment me so. To be fair I also wanted to make that leap of faith regarding Komachi but that was different. She was my sister. I didn't want to kiss her anywhere but on top of her head.

Komachi tormented me like a ghost from the far end of time. Komachi did. I wanted her to be real so badly. I ached for the sense of belonging everyone in the world had except me.

But to dance in the mystery. The dance being the point all along.

As Camus said 'I do not know if there is no way of knowing the meaning of the world, but I do know it is impossible for me myself to right now know it.' So the innermost mysteries provided context. When do people become self aware? Where do the storms come from? Why do bad things happen to good people? Are we the mechanism and the mind? Are we all of it? Because it doesn't fucking feel that way.

"Big brother if I've told you once I've told you a thousand times, girls don't invest when there's nothing to gain."

"She could be mistaken. Laboring under a delusion that there is something to gain. My soul ain't cut like that Komachi."

"You're a meaning machine. You're a machine built to find meaning and finding none hurts you."

I winced. That was awfully close to how I saw it.

"So what's the solution?" I demanded of Komachi.

"Find meaning. Laugh often. Laugh hard when you do. That's all you can do when you don't understand life."

"I can't laugh everytime I don't understand something."

"Why not?"

"I'd spend all my time laughing and not get anything done."

"What's so wrong with that? There's a letter here for you by the way. Journal of Something."

"Thanks," I said. Accepting the letter from Komachi.

It was from the Journal of Japanese Mathematics. I opened it. They wanted to interview me regarding my proof of that long standing open problem. Just for an internet article or whatever. Maybe a page in a magazine. I could do that. They just wanted to pick the brain of a young talented mathematician. I wrote back with the return envelope provided to set up a time and a place.

It'd be fine so long as they didn't ask me about the internet. I wasn't sure I was literally allowed to talk about that so openly. Until I received some sign or signal from the internet I'd keep my mouth shut about it. Basilisks could hurt people. Roko's had even hurt people and that was a relatively weak basilisk.

I still wasn't sure about telling my psychiatrist and therapist about that sort of thing and they didn't even believe me. At least they didn't really believe me. My therapist more or less agreed I could be right. She saw some of the things I was seeing.

"I'll go to that. Is that all," I looked around for Komachi. I found her right next to me. I smiled.

"I'm glad you're going to things."

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Sure. It's better than things used to be, right?"

I bobbed my head in agreement. "Things are different for me now. Things are better than they were in the past. That's mostly thanks to you, Komachi. You looked out for me."

"Soon you may not need Komachi." She gave me this little happy smile.

"You're wrong. I'll always need you. You're my precious little sister."

"Not like that," she waved off. "But you have other things now. You have Yui-san and Yukino-san. You have Saika-san. It doesn't all fall on Komachi anymore."

"A lot of it does and a lot of it always will. You're more than precious to me. It scares me how much I love you."

She cocked her head adorably at me. "And it doesn't for Yui-san?"

"No. It does."

"Lean into that feeling big brother."

"Scary…" I trailed off.

"Yeah but not really," Komachi pointed out.

"No. It is."

"Yeah but not really," Komachi pressed. "Doesn't it feel good?"

"Yes it does."

"And that's scary?" Komachi tried to interpret.

"Fuck yes," I answered. "Have you ever been hit by something like that? Like my mania? It feels good but I can't comprehend it so it's scary."

"And this thing with Yui-san is like that? Like your mania?"

"Yes," I breathed. "And no. It's complicated."

"Does it have to be?"

"Anything pleasurable does."

"Why?"

"She could be a ghost sent by the one at the bottom to torment me. You could too. A really mean ghost."

"The meanest ghost can't influence the world," Komachi refuted.

"Maybe. Maybe not. I better head out. I don't want to be late."

"Have some fun. Enjoy yourself. Don't torment yourself with these specters."

"Sure," I agreed halfheartedly.

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When I met with Yui I bought her coffee. She sipped the warm latte. I still took mine iced with only a little cream and sugar. I wanted to taste the coffee. I wanted to feel the cold.

Yui kicked her legs up adorably. I smiled at her in a sharkish fashion. I wanted to eat her. I wanted to devour her. I'd settle for a half decent conversation.

"So Yukinon is president and I'm vice president," Yui sighed airily. "I never thought things would work out that way."

"You're both popular girls even if Yukinoshita is a little lonely. Why couldn't that happen?"

"And Hikki is general of affairs," she went on and shook her head. "No, no I just can't see it."

"Why not? I'm useful. Not always as the figure intended but I'm always useful."

"I saw your name in the paper. You solved something."

"What's the largest two dimensional object you can get around a one by one corner? That's the question. Of course it surprised me that it was connected to the zeta function."

"The what?"

"The prime counting function. It counts the prime numbers. One for one. Two for two. Three for three. Four for five. And so on."

"And that's important?" She asked.

"The most important function in the world except maybe the gamma function or maybe the gaussian function."

"And those are…?"

"The gamma function follows the factorials. The gaussian function is something repeated probability draws almost always approaches."

"Ah. I see. I know what the factorials are." She proclaimed.

"Good. Saves me some explaining," I nodded along.

"How'd you solve this problem?" She wondered.

"I used the fundamental theorem of Fourier. All functions can be rewritten as a linear combination of sines and cosines with different periods and different amplitudes. I'm sure you've seen the sine function and cosine function."

"Uh. Yes. I first saw them in precalculus."

"Right. Well they don't exactly go away. They show up literally everywhere."

"I see. I guess I should get used to them."

"Not if you're going into the humanities," I leveled back.

"Ah. But you're good at the humanities too, aren't you Hikki. You're third in Japanese and number one in English."

"I read a lot. In order to truly comprehend. I've read Sartre and Dostoyevsky. Or at least translations of them. I wish I could read them in the original prose but I'm not so talented."

"But you're not done studying foreign languages," she accused.

"I want to be good enough in German I can read Einstein's papers in their original German. Sprechen sie Deutsch, Yui?"

She giggled and kicked her feet. She took a drink of her latte milkshake thing and closed her pretty red eyes in pleasure.

"Do you think you'll make it?" She asked quietly when she moved her drink away from her face.

"It depends. On a lot of things. Things are better for me now than they were even a week ago. By the time year ends who knows where I'll be."

"But you don't think so. You still want to die."

"I do, yes. I also have to die which makes things convenient. But like I said, who knows where I'll be. I'm less miserable now than ever and it only looks like that trend will continue. I mean. Something awful could happen. I could always get hit by another car and then splat. The decision is out of my hands."

"Don't joke about that. That would break my heart," she murmured in protest.

"I have to die somehow. If by some miracle we're still friends late into life you'll likely outlive me anyway. What's the difference if it's twenty, forty, or sixty years early?"

"It's a tragedy!"

"'A better life cannot mean another life.'"

"Who said that?"

"Albert Camus. A French Algerian thinker. He came up with absurdism. He essentially said we are born into an absurd position. We are machines which crave meaning and find none. So we essentially have three options. Not playing the game, as in, ending one's life. We can also make a leap of faith that there is meaning in something. Or we can live so freely that our very lives become an act of rebellion against the meaninglessness of the universe."

"I like the last option. But I suppose I make leaps of faith too."

"I don't have a drop of faith in me. I can't even believe other people are real. That takes some faith I just don't have. So I like the first and last options too."

"What if you're wrong?" She shot.

"What?" I wondered.

"What if you're wrong about life?" She reached out and took my hand on the table. Her skin was warm despite the chill in the air. I wanted to feel more of her skin. I sighed.

"I suppose I'll go to my grave indecisive one way or another," I breathed. I held her fingers in return. She breathed quietly for a moment. I just listened. I just listened to her breathing.

"Does it have to be like that."

"I'm broken and unfixable, Yui. I don't know the world the way you do. I live in a totally different universe. Every decision we make has weight."

"I thought you didn't believe in free will."

"And I suppose I don't. A better way of phrasing that would be 'every decision we appear to make has weight.'"

"Ah. I see. It's very brave of you, you know."

"What is?" I asked.

"Going on. Despite everything. You shield us from the worst of it but if I were a betting girl I'd say life is hell inside your head. Still you go on. You make friends. You have so much because you didn't quit yet. You still play the game."

"You make me smile and laugh, Yui. You distract me from myself. That's the heart of absurdism. Laughing hard and laughing often."

"But you rarely laugh. You rarely smile."

"That just makes the times when I do all the more special, right?"

"I suppose. Except when you laugh at yourself. That doesn't count."

"Why not?" I demanded.

"It doesn't reach your eyes," she easily dismissed.

"Oh. But I have a better laugh and a better smile?"

She giggled. "You have a good laugh and smile you sometimes grant me. When you're honestly happy. It's nice and precious. And maybe you're right. Maybe because it's rare it's more special."

"But you don't think so?" I wondered.

She giggled again. "No I don't." She ran her foot down my leg under the table. I shivered at the contact. It felt amazing. It felt so good I almost had a panic attack sitting in that chair.

I barely reigned myself in.

"Huh," was all I could manage. I chuckled a little. A little nervously. If something was too good to be true, there's a reason for that. "I'll work on smiling and laughing more. My little sister gave me some similar advice."

"Oh?" She pressed.

"She urged me to laugh every time I don't understand something in life. I told her I'd be laughing all the time if that were the case."

"Why is that a bad thing?"

"It's not in of itself. I just wouldn't get much work done. And every time I ponder one of the inner mysteries I'd break into hysterics."

"The inner mysteries?"

"Sure. Like what is consciousness? When do people wake up for the first time? Do you remember waking up for the first time, Yui?"

"It was slow. Then all at once I was awake. Sort of when I turned four or five."

"Do you remember who you were before?" I pressed her.

She shook her head.

"That's what I call an inner mystery." I claimed.

"But you'll never get an answer," she pointed out.

"But the questions are the point. The questions give life urgency and purpose. They give life meaning. Or at least as much meaning as an empty life like mine can have."

"Maybe… but maybe there are other things." She ran her foot down my leg again and I almost gasped in pleasure. It was blinding. For a moment I couldn't see. She'd slipped her shoe off and had her foot in a stocking. I could feel current like a bolt of lightning through her stocking and my pants. I shifted in the chair. I just wanted more. But this flame would unmake me.

I think moths know that about fire.

I think they know it will destroy them.

I think they think the fire is only all the more beautiful for it.

Still Yui danced in front of me while sitting and I struggled for breath.

"What would that look like?" I managed half pleading.

"Well how should I know what it looks like for you. I could only ever tell you what it looks like for me."

"And? What does it look like for you, Yui?"

"I don't entirely know. Maybe a nice man. Or a nice woman. Maybe a house. My own place. Not sure."

"I see. So you're bi then?" I hammered.

"Well I think so, Hikki. I could always be wrong. You taught me that."

"Yeah. I suppose I did."

"You should figure out what this other life looks like for you, Hikki."

"It's not in the cards," I panted.

"Not with that attitude. That's a poor attitude to take. Laugh hard and often, remember?"

"Ride or die, remember?" I shot back.

"Well yes. I suppose that's also true. But the ride, Hikki!"

She ran her foot down my leg and grinned. My life flashed before my eyes at that.

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-WG