4.3 I Want You To Kill Me

When Haku woke up the next morning and found himself surrounded by talismans, he rolled his eyes. Sitting up, he told Akiha, "And Hua says I'm dramatic."

Akiha had stayed glued to the desk the whole night, and not only because it, too, was surrounded by talismans. Needless to say, he hadn't slept. "He... hello. How do you feel?"

Haku took off the talisman on his forehead. "I'd never been possessed before."

"Oh, wow, you remember."

He crumpled it. "Why wouldn't I? What a waste of paper."

"I don't think vessels are meant to remember. Textbooks describe it as being unconscious, then waking up in a strange place. With that said, with all the precautions against entities of the sort, it's not supposed to happen anymore. Such a malady is 'extinct in nature'. I'm neither surprised nor disappointed that you'd bring it back."

"I didn't think it could do that," Haku replied, then tossed a paper ball at Akiha. It missed. "Stop talking like that. It's annoying."

"Stop wasting talismans. It's more annoying."

"I like you more when you swear every other word."

"I don't—" Akiha tossed back the paper ball. It also missed. "Don't take out your ill mood on me. It's... what was it you said? Indecorous. In any case, it's best if you stay in bed today. I can't detect any remnants of that thing, but an expert might. Besides, I read one of the side effects was diarrhea."

Because Haku was Haku, he found it funny. There is was, his actual smile—it made that of the wraith possessing him innocent by comparison.

"Don't smirk when I tell you that, sheesh."

"Bodyache," Haku recited, "Muscle spasms. Hallucinations. Stomach pain. Dizziness. Disorientation. I know all the symptoms. Why you chose that one is beyond me, but it might be telling of something."

Something = the only symptom Akiha remembered. Was that telling of something? He cleared his throat. "I'll go for breakfast. Stay here. Please. And stop taking off talismans."

"Bring soup."

"Yes."

"Great. Thanks." Haku reached for a book from the literal pile next to his bed, lay back down, flipped it open, and began to read. The rest of the talismans stayed attached to his bed, with their perfect 4:3 ratios and stencilled symbols. Akiha got ready for the day, as he so often did, drawing curtains over his side of the room as though Haku cared about him dressing up. Come to think of it, neither of them had taken a bath last night. Understandable, and it wasn't as though he could take one now without freezing his hair or causing third-degree burns as he hastily tried to dry it after, but it'd bother him all day nonetheless.

"Uh, Haku. Can I borrow—"

"Yeah."

"Much appreciated." Akiha took Haku's cloak from the coat hanger next to the door, and another literal pile of books. Akiha's own was too warm for the area, as his hometown stood right next to the center. Only entropy and the fourth law of thermodynamics kept them from facing absolute zero, or whatever Haku had told him on the subject. While Haku had around a dozen coats, Akiha had one, so.

So he left.

So he came back. With breakfast. Radish soup, to be precise. Haku still read, although he'd stolen Akiha's pillow. "Avoiding Hua was a perilous task," Akiha said. "I thought about telling her, but..."

"Bad idea." Haku flipped a page.

"Perhaps. Your soup is on the desk. Extra radishes, as usual."

Haku flipped another page. It'd taken him... what, ten seconds? To read it. About a minute later, he sat up again. He didn't check the page, for he left the book open on his bed, as one did. Since Hua wasn't around, they ate in silence for the most part. It wasn't as though Akiha had nothing to say; Haku and he just didn't share many interests. At times, it seemed as though Haku didn't share many interests with people in general.

Out of nowhere, Haku said, "What kinds of books do you think 'discontent' likes?"

"Are you actually going to..." Yes he was. "I'm not sure? You'd know more than me."

"I'm not sure, either. It wasn't too happy with what I took last time."

"Which was?"

"The Theory Of Nothing."

Akiha couldn't tell if that was... well, telling. "Uhh... novels, perhaps?"

"I don't read that trash."

"But I do. Just know that if it ruins them, you're paying them back."

"Be classy, though," Haku said. "None of those Ravished By The Werewolf atrocities."

"That was once. ONCE."

"You don't seem that opposed to seeing the 'discontent' again. Color me shocked."

"Well, I don't fancy the alternative."

"Me neither," Haku admitted. "I'm not sure why."

He wasn't sure why he'd rather live than die? Akiha said nothing. He really should've.

***

"You're both back!"

"Not like we h—" Haku winced when Akiha elbowed him. Best not to let the wraith know Haku recalled the possession (or was so seemingly unbothered by it). "—had much else to do."

The chair had been toppled over. Other than the eerie, disemboweled voice, there was no evidence that the wraith was there. Both Akiha and Haku wore a single talisman under their clothes, on their back, but to move too hastily might've alerted the entity due to friction. Akiha's heart raced. As though facing an invisible monster wasn't bad enough, one wrong twitch was all it could take for a lake's worth of water to crash upon them. "Right," was his contribution.

They both stared at the chair. The wraith could be literally anywhere else. "Put the books next to my throne. Why, Haku, won't you talk about your woes tonight? How about you, friend of Haku?"

"You talk about yours," Haku spoke to the chair. Nonchalantly, he placed their selection of novels next to it. "Akiha's here. I don't feel like being judged."

"But you're friends, right? Why would... he? Judge you. They?"

"He," Akiha said.

Haku sat. "I come here for a reason. Who else can I talk to? Hua pretends to understand, but she doesn't. My parents don't take me seriously. My teachers don't take me seriously. Akiha is Akiha. I told him about the cataclysm and his response was to ingest radish soup."

"You're misconstruing—"

"Ehh, don't worry, Akiha. I know how Haku gets. Anyway, since you seem to know about the 'cataclysm', that saves me some time. Basically, to prevent it, I want you to kill me."

Even Haku seemed surprised by this.

"Baby steps, though. I'm not mentally prepared yet. Besides, I'm not sure if you two could, but the moment I leave this place is the moment something bad will happen. There is a reason why I jailed myself here, you know? It's not like I want to kill people or anything. I never have. But if you tell others about this right now, I'll... yeah. I need some more time. So tell me about yourselves."

Akiha was... well.

Well.

"Or don't. That's fine. Haku also reacted that way when he heard me. I mean, you guys can't see me, so I understand. As for my accent, you could say I'm somewhat of a polyglot. I used grimoires at first and stuff, but then I actually learned the language. A lot of them. Well, no, just four, but that's a lot to most people. Or maybe not anymore? I don't even know how long it's been since I died. I can't remember most things. It's fuzzy. My world is this lake. It's depressing, and it's boring and lonely. You guys talk now. Go on, talk. I'm bored. Hey. Haku?"

"Um." It seemed as though the wraith hadn't acted this way before. Thing was, when Haku lost control of his facial expressions, he really did. "I. The. Akiha?"

There was nothing on the unit about wraiths to counter this. They usually just kind of non-verbally wrought havoc until someone exorcized them. "W-what can you remember?" Was what came out.

Was it better or worse that the chair didn't move? Nor did the books, for that matter. The lights glowing outside the bubble as water swirled above suffocated Akiha; the lake might as well have already reached his lungs. "Hmm... it's hazy. I've tried remembering, but it doesn't work. I just know I died, but I also didn't. Discontent was how I ended up here. You guys should take care of your mental health. It's important. Wraiths feed on negative emotions, so if there's soo much stress and despair going around, you might get haunted."

Akiha and Haku exchanged glances. This time, it was Haku who spoke. "True. Unfortunately, most of my peers remain, um. Remain ignorant on the subject. They refuse to acknowledge despair."

"They're trained to. The more you open your eyes, the uglier everything gets. That's why they... you, actually, are trained to move so fast that everything is a blur."

"I tripped," Haku said. He wasn't looking at Akiha anymore. "Everything is so ugly that to run again seems pointless."

"Ah! There you go, despair. See, Akiha? Your friend is in despair. Why do you dismiss him?"

"I—don't?"

"You dismiss your own despair, too. you just don't realize. How can you train to counter it when you avoid it? Basic knowledge. Common sense. Oh, this language sounds so weird when one isn't being flowery..." The voice trailed off. Perhaps it remembered something. "...but that's how that saying went. Hm. I'll have to cut the reunion short for tonight."

"Shame," Haku said. He sounded like he meant it. He didn't sound like he meant it.

"Those books should last for a couple of days. Bring a notebook next time, and a pen. Oh, and try to lessen despair. I don't just mean you two, I mean everyone. There's too much of it."

Should Akiha... say goodbye? To the wraith? To the wraith that had threatened to kill Haku yet so casually told them to look after their mind?

He didn't.

They crawled out the tunnel, out the lake. Just like yesterday, the moment they did, water filled it. A suspiciously-shaped hole at its top would freeze within minutes. Akiha's dumb question on the matter was, "Did you get possessed again?"

"Not that I know of," Haku replied. "Either the talismans worked, or it didn't feel like doing it."

And that was that.

Silence, all the way back.

Silence, all night.

White above, black below, yet the snowy floor and night sky didn't swirl into gray.

Late at night, Haku's voice woke Akiha up. "What do you think about what he said?"

It took a few seconds for Akiha to remember how to think. He'd been dreaming about electric sheep. "About, uh... despair? I think it's, um. It's not good."

"It's not. What else?"

"What else... you should talk to people about what's troubling you. I told you."

"What if nobody listens?" Asked Haku.

"I am."

"You're not. No one is."

"I quite literally am."

Haku sighed. "I must admit I'm at fault for telling you this while you're basically dreaming... although it was on purpose, too."

"Purple?"

"You listen, but you don't. In some ways, it's a relief. It'll be easier if nobody cares."

"Yeah..."

"Good night, Akiha."

"Good night, Haku."