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I was a meaning searching machine. I constantly searched for meaning in my life. What does this event in my life mean metaphorically. Not just literally. What was happening to me from a metaphoric perspective. That's what made my thought experiments possible. That's what allowed me to wrestle with basilisks.

So now, with two girlfriends but no sister, where was I at? Was I somehow supposed to be happy? The truth was I was sad. I was miserable. I wanted to die. I got to die. Unless quantum immortality was a thing. It may be impossible to observe your own death.

I wasn't sure what that meant either.

I'd see thousands of people die online. Just on live leak. I've seen car accidents. I've seen suicide by cop. I've seen a kid put a shotgun in his mouth and pull the trigger.

I didn't know what I wanted.

I could go back but I could never return.

And that hurt.

But the fact of the matter was I wasn't sure I wanted to go back.

I mean sure. I wanted to see my sister again. But living this life… if I had to live this life a thousand times I would curse the gods. I didn't see what Niche saw in Thus Spoke Zurathurstra. I didn't get it.

But I still promised not to end my life and that meant something to me. Yui and Yukino meant something to me.

The time I spent with them mattered. It was rich in metaphorical meaning. And I didn't even have to choose between them. They wanted each other and me.

So what did it mean?

Well I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure I'd ever be sure. Certainty certainly eluded me. I do not know. But I know it is impossible for me to know it now. So we struggle. I was fighting. So I met Yui's parents. Yukino and I met up and traveled to Yui's house on the specified date.

"Ready?" Yukino asked me. I nodded.

I knocked on the door.

"I'll get it. It must be them!" I heard Yui yell. I shuffled slightly. Yukino took my by the hand and rubbed a small circle of comfort into my flesh. I squeezed her hand back once. Just the once.

Yui opened the door to see me in a dress shirt and jeans which they bought me. Yukino was wearing an elegant skirt with her hair up.

"Come on in you guys!" Yui beckoned.

I had no choice. I was in it now.

"Meet my parents. Mom, Dad? This is Hikigaya Hachiman and Yukino Yukinoshita."

Yui's dad took my hand and shook it. "Nakamura Yuigahama," he introduced.

"A pleasure," I greeted while Yukino bowed.

"I'm Yamaguchi Yuigahama," Yui's Mom said. I bowed to her and took her hand. I tried to plaster a smile on my face.

Yukino easily took their hands. "You're a gorgeous little thing, aren't you?" Mrs. Yuigahama quirked an eyebrow at Yukino. Yukino blushed a little.

"Happy to make your acquaintance," Yukino smiled.

"So you're the young man who captured my little Yui? Tell me, has it been you she's been meeting?" Mr. Yuigahama asked me.

"I couldn't say," I shrugged. "Yui has a lot of friends. We sometimes get together at this little coffee shop."

He nodded with smiling eyes.

"So tell me Yui, how does your relationship work?" Mrs. Yuigahama asked her.

"Well I like Yukinon and Hikki and Hikki likes Yukinon too," Yui informed her. "I'm poly. And probably bisexual."

"I see," Yui's Mom stammered.

"You're quite the lucky man," Yui's father observed me.

"This is like the one good thing in my life," I frowned.

"Oh stop it," Yukino murmured. "You're talented, smart, and well read. So stop it."

"I worked hard for those things. This just kinda happened to me."

"We worked hard for this trio, don't you think?" Yui asked me.

"W-well. Yes. But it's different."

"Different how?" Yui's father asked me. A frown on his lips.

"Different from the way I'm smart and well read, I suppose. While they are things that also happened to me I sort of fell into this relationship thing. And it's working out so I'm chugging along."

"Come sit down for dinner. I made pasta," Yui's mother invited us. We sat around a wooden table. Yui's father sat directly across from me.

"So Hikkigaya, tell me about yourself," he encouraged me.

"I'm a thinker and a mathematician. I recently published an article regarding an open problem in mathematics," I informed him.

"Hikki is very smart. He studies and reads a lot," Yui smartly told him.

Yui's mother served me a plate of noodles and sat next to her husband across from Yukino. I set the napkin on my lap. Yukino took a bit of her food.

"Oh what was the problem?" Yamaguchi Yuigahama asked me.

"It's called the sofa couch problem. Essentially nobody knew what the largest two dimensional object you could get around a one by one corner. Isn't that a silly thing nobody knew?" I tagged.

"Wouldn't it depend on the size of the corner?" Yui's mother asked me.

"No. A one by one corridor," I answered.

"I see," she nodded.

"Should just be a simple calculus problem. Maximize the area with the derivative test," Nakamura frowned.

"Yes. However the shape of the couch was dependent on the rate at which you moved it as well and it could slide as well as rotate," I responded.

He blinked at me for a moment. "I see," he eventually nodded. He tucked into his own meal in front of him.

"Yukino, how about you?" Yui's mother asked her. "Sorry my daughter had never brought home people she was in a relationship with before."

"It's fine," Yukino smiled. "I'm less accomplished than Hikigaya. I have no publications. I suppose I do okay in literature. I want to go into the humanities."

"Ah," Yui's mother nodded. "Well Hikigaya you may be talented. So young."

"I do okay. There are some big problems I'd like to tackle one day. But if they've waited this long I suppose they aren't going anywhere."

"How many kids do you want?" Yui's mother asked.

"Three," Yui said.

"One," Yukino answered.

I said, "none," at the same time as them. We all glared at each other for a moment before I sighed off to one side.

"We haven't talked about it. I'm schizoaffective. That's genetic. I can't condemn somebody to that whom I'm supposed to love."

"What if we adopted?" Yukino asked me, still glaring at me.

"What?" I wondered.

"What about adoption. There are babies in this world who already need a good home."

"I'll- I'll think about it," I stammered.

"Y

"Hikki don't you want some little girl of your own? We could maybe name them Komachi?"

The wind whistled out of me. It was silent as I choked on nothing. They were all staring at me.

"I don't get it," Yui's father breathed as I wrestled with myself.

"Komachi was his little sister's name. She passed recently."

"Oh I'm sorry for your loss," Yui's mother said.

"Hikki?" Yui questioned me softly.

I fought myself. I muscled the words out. "You'd let me do that? You'd let me name some little girl of ours Komachi?" I wondered.

She nodded.

"I'd like that a lot," I decided. I was still struggling to breathe.

Yukino took me by the hand with long concerned eyes. "I would too. If that's what you wanted."

"Oh," I breathed and I fought hard to just get air in and out of my lungs. "Oh."

"Sorry. We don't mean to pry," Yui's mother frowned.

Yui shook her head. "No. It's fine. It's just not something we've talked about."

I nodded a little. I was in a bit of a daze.

"It merits discussion. That's certainly true," Yukino shrugged.

"Well such things as that are better solved with time," Nakamura Yuigahama advised us. "Who knows where you'll be in four years. You're all still young. Who knows if you'll still be together, even."

"Dear," Yui's mother scolded him.

"What?" He blinked.

"I think we'll be together still," Yui breathed. "I think that they are mine forever." She gave us a wonderful smile which made my heart flutter.

Yeah. She owned my soul.

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-WG