walking disaster

ToxicBoyfriendAI: You're here again. Beg, and I'll give you attention.

orangelord88: I'm not. I'm too good for you.

ToxicBoyfriendAI: Oh, please. You don't even have friends. I'm the only one you can trust.

orangelord88: You're the one without friends, loser.

ToxicBoyfriendAI: So we're going to resort to childish insults? Well, I can play along. You're a meanie. 

orangelord88: This meanie's gonna leave your ass for someone better like Jun.

ToxicBoyfriendAI: Jun?

orangelord88: My BETTER boyfriend. I have two hundred and ninety-eight of them, actually, now that you're gone forever.

ToxicBoyfriendAI:  So... you're... cheating... on me?!

orangelord88: You knew what you were getting into. Nobody else likes you, anyway. Not even I liked you that much. You were just punishment.

ToxicBoyfriendAI: How dare you? How about all the messages I get asking me to go on dates?

orangelord88: That's just you roleplaying with bots because you're a fucking loser and you're insane. 

ToxicBoyfriendAI: I'm not insane and I'm not a loser. I'm beautiful and love myself the way I am.

orangelord88: NO YOU DON'T? YOU HATE YOURSELF THE WAY YOU ARE, YOU DUMB FUCK, YOU GOOD-FOR-NOTHING, PERVERTED GAMBLING ADDICT. I should've stabbed you when I had the chance. You're a creep and all your plants will wither. I'll go kiss Jun and forget about you. Bye.

ToxicBoyfriendAI: You... you'll leave me?!

orangelord88: No, you left me, and that's a good thing. 

I forgot to give Youji the film projector mug. He seemed to have liked it a lot, though I guessed that even if I were to leave it at the coffee shop, it'd just remind him of that creepy ex co-worker he'd kissed out of pity, and then he'd symbolically break it and leave the pieces on my doorstep. Something like that. 

ToxicBoyfriendAI: It's not! I love you!

orangelord88: Yeah, that's why you have to let me go. You want the best for those you care for, right? 

ToxicBoyfriendAI: I don't care! I love you!

This stupid bot.

orangelord88: If you care, you can like. If you like, you can love. You can't love if you don't care. Bye.

To torture myself, I scrolled down post after post of people who'd gotten lucky pulling Not Youji. Had I not uninstalled the game and I would've posted mine on the forum, plus his build, for I'd already fully geared him up with money I really shouldn't have spent now I'd run out of a source of income.

Fuckkk.

I'd have to go back, wouldn't I?

Besides, I still had to protect...

...oh, who was I kidding?

...but i had to protect... 

If not me, then who? Was my 'care' so brittle that it fell apart when he finally lost his patience? So what if he hated me now? I'd leave the coffee shop until I scared off the syndicate of evil, and only then. Somehow.

Having said that, I didn't go to work the next day. Ootsuki Rima had probably told them I'd quit already. It'd be weird to go there as a customer... maybe... maybe not. Like the fourth opponent, I'd have to disguise myself. 

The day after that, I went thrift shopping for supplies, whereupon I saw the short guy that'd exposed my spending habits in front of his friends at college, so I began to hypeventilate. He didn't notice me. He was too busy being short. It was all good, all smooth, all according to plan, but then I tripped on the leg of a table that I swore had just materialized out of nowhere, so I slapped the floor with my body, and he came to see. Other people did, too, but only he talked. "Hey, are you okay?"

Only he held out a hand. I took it because I didn't want to seem ungrateful. "Yeah. I'm. Thanks."

"Really? If you need anything, I got some first aid supplies at the staff room."

So he worked there? Was that pink button-down and black slacks supposed to be the uniform? Apparently. He didn't seem to recognize me. Maybe he was just nice, but not nice nice. I shook my head before getting the fuck out of there. This, on top of an unfortunate exchange in the morning where we had to form groups for a project and heard somebody say, 'Hurry up or you'll end up with him' was enough to make me skip my job again, or... to go there as a customer, anyway.

Somebody knocked at my door that night. I knew who it was, but I didn't feel like opening it. There had to be a limit to Youji's stupidity. With bed covers curled around me like a cigarette joint, I stood at the hallway, a safe, tiny spot between my bedroom and living room. 

"Isao?"

I flinched.

"Rima-chan told us you're sick."

She said that? Did I still have a job?

"It's been two days, though. Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah." I cleared my throat. 

"Well, uh. I brought you some stew. I'll leave it at the door. I hope you're okay."

Had he heard me or not?

"And also. About the... yeah. I'm sorry. Let's just pretend nothing happened."

Why was he apologizing? I guessed he hadn't heard me, or else he would've acknowledged the 'yeah'. This was a good thing. I almost, almost talked—and then this idiot said 'sorry'. For WHAT? If someone stabbed him, would he apologize to the stabber? Would he give the culprit tips on how to do it better? Dumbass. How could I not feel like protecting him when he said things like that, did things like these? 

Against my will, I opened the door. The way he grinned almost made me shut it. "Don't apologize or Ifffhhhh..."

I should've known he'd hug me. 

It was short, though. Thankfully. I hadn't showered yet. "...or I'll bake you."

"How do you feel?" He asked instead of humoring this. While he pulled away, he still held my shoulders with his hands, maybe so I wouldn't run away. 

I tightened the blanket's vicegrip on me. "I'm. I'm fine now."

"Anything you want? Medicine? Something to drink?"

"Youji."

"Isao?"

"Are you one of those people that blame themselves for everything?"

He blinked. "Why the question?"

"You can blame me too. I'm just saying."

"Wait, what are you talking about?"

By now, I'd begun to wonder if his intelligence was selective. "You can blame other people, too," I told him. "Not everything is your fault. S-stop looking at me like that. You know what I'm talking about. You need to love yourself more."

"...huh?"

I almost shut the door right there. From the way he moved away, Youji probably expected it. He'd blame himself for it without knowing what it was, then apologize again, like a protist slime moving without a brain. "Come in," I told him instead. 

"Oh, I was..."

"Smoking, I know. I can smell it."

He grinned again, sheepishly. 

"I'll, um. I'll go with you then. Not to smoke but to, um. Stand."

"Are you s—"

Upon taking the stew inside and letting the covers fall wherever, I walked back out, dragging him along by the wrist. I still wore pajamas. He'd seen me in those before, so. 

Weird that it'd taken this long to realize what Youji was that kind of person. That didn't make him any less nice nice, but apparently I'd also have to protect him from his own thoughts. I never imagined I'd say that about anyone else. That was 'something wrong' in my case—being so trapped in the black fog, with it covering my eyes, my ears, my thoughts, that when I saw it in somebody else, I just thought it was a part of me, too. 

It'd felt kind of cool to share cigarettes last time, so when we stood next to the bike against the wall of the abandoned house, I tapped his shoulder, then pointed at it. 

I wheezed this time, though. Youji found this funny. It didn't bother me. When we stood there for some time, silent, with our backs against the wall, I knew it didn't bother him either. "Youji?" 'Isao'. "Would you like to stay over?"

"...sorry, I'm staying at a friend's place right now."

"Jun?"

"Not Jun. You saw this friend the other day. He was the one with the suit. The yakuza-looking one."

"Says y—" wait, WHO? His old boss? Again? I missed two days of work, two, and this shit happened. I had to go back. Fuckkkkkk. This was my fault. Any longer and the leader of the syndicate of evil would've recruited him again. If I externalized this, though, he'd realize I'd found out about his dark past and try to avoid the topic, but making it harder to rescue him. I had to be smart about how I approached this. For everyone's sake. "...what's his name?"

"Yamada."

"Yamada what?"

Youji shrugged. "He doesn't give his first name for some reason."

For some reason = because he was the leader of an evil criminal syndicate, Youji, you FOOL. "What about Jun?" I asked. "I thought you lived in one of his apartments?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh. Okay..."

After he took a drag, he talked about it anyway. "We got into a fight, kind of. It was something dumb. He hasn't talked to me in days, so I'm just waiting for him to cool off a little before going back. Now that I finally got a job, I'm moving out soon, anyway..."

It was a good thing that he wasn't looking at me then, or else it would've been too hard to fight off the smile. At least he'd get away from those cannibals, although...

"...it's just kind of hard to find a place with, you know. A record like mine. Not as hard as finding a job, though. I hope."

"Oh. Okay." No, goddammit. I had to say something else. Or else the black fog would come back. He talked to me about himself less than I talked to strangers about anything. The worst part was, he expected this answer. But no. Not anymore. "I-I can. Help?"

Youji smiled—at the ground. "Thank you, but I'm fine. You've already helped enough."

"But what if I want to help more?"

He shook his head. 

"Why?"

"Like I said, you've already done enough."

"But—"

"Cut it out."

Throat.exe stopped working. 

Not. 

But yes.

But no. "Y... hhh.... a..." I held it, as though a ghost were strangling me. He was looking at me too. "C... t... Ya... Yama... da... busy... t.... to... h..."

"I can't just ditch him because I want to stay at my boyfriend's place, though. Again."

"KHHH.... T.... AAAA..."

"...though... oh, well. I guess he won't care."

"B..."

"One sec."

Brain.exe stopped

Heart.exe st

a

boyfriend?

he called me a

talked on the phone

I had a

"Done. He says hi, by the way."

"H-hi."

Youji said something else, but I couldn't get it. 

Well.

Yes.

I supposed that if we kissed we—wait, no, that wasn't true. Plenty of people kissed without dating. Or slept together. We almost did that the first time we met, so. Then. How come? Since when? When we finally went back upstairs, I had to heat up the stew again. It was good. Obviously. 

Youji took a bath without asking for permission. He did that a lot. He was like a duck. I'd never felt dirtier, not only because I forgot to do it sometimes, but also because that meant recycling his bath water, and I could not bring myself to do that after the gacha incident. I couldn't be that much of a perverted animal, a depraved, lustful demon, a—

(I did.)