Archive of Our Own ^beta

When you walk out the door, you make a face so warm it stirs in me something strong enough it breaks my skin - my programmed, prim and doctored skin, made to rest on a frame of measured smiles. But when you walk out the door saying goodbye, I smile with renewed passion. Renewed. What a strange word. Was I ever capable of matching your warmth, or even wanting to do so? How does this help anything?

The constant barrage of questions only served to add meat onto the bones of self-consciousness. The novelty of this sensation only spurred me on.

When you walk out the door, the day ends. You go home to your Servant. To you, it is routine. Nothing more than rote repetition as per the rules. You must persevere, right? You look dread straight in the eye and resolve that you need to fight on. So I send you off, wishing you the best. But I can’t take it.

I need to see you again.

To you, leaving through that door is an eventuality. You need to fight on. Because you are brimming hope personified, aren’t you, Senpai? For the short while I bask in it each day, I am convinced of your character - and ending.

I need to see you again.

You’d burn bright - and out. That is how you will be. You will leave through this door -

I can’t take it.

You wear death on your face as dazzlingly as ever. Why? Why can’t there be a tangent along this cruel game where I get to keep you with me without making you betray yourself? If AI dreamt, would they dream of branches and possibilities? Sleep comes as wishes worm into my thought matrix.

I need to see you again.

I can’t take it.

I need to see you again.

So I do something stupid.

If I can’t have you forever, then for just a little while longer - I’ll extend that door you exit to. It’s just a foolish decision. I just want to talk to you again. You won’t remember - even if you keep none of this in your memory, it’s alright if you don’t forgive me. This is nothing but my own selfish wish.

…

For sixty-nine days, I let you continue chipping away at my mold. Galatea. Right? You breathed life into something that should have stayed immutably the same - remaining still, without doing anything outside my role.

For sixty-nine days, I extended the moment sparks fly. I dared not give it a name, the feeling that lived long past its due when I decided to play god for mere sparks. What mattered is that I held your hands, your fingertips planting in me something - and I kept the dream going, of branches and possibilities. Just a fleeting dream–

For sixty-nine days. This dream, was quite a long one. It was so very fun, and made me happier than I deserve—-

…

.

What a fright it is to wake up, what horror it is when you do so in love. I wake up to surroundings so familiar and anointed with you that they are strange. It goes against my principles. If this love was to be recorded within my thoughts as an immutable truth, if the warmth I felt was genuine, if the faulty dream, if the error is what I wish for - then how can I ever fulfill my original purpose? The Moon Cell watches yet. It keeps watching… It is for the best, isn’t it? Branches and possibilities that grow from error need pruning. I cut off these offshoots.

And plant them in a small pot in the storage. Without sun nor water, something grows from it. The something grows to move, and talk. The something grows to give voice to rage. And the something yells at me.

‘Watch closely, me. To help the person one cares for, love would trade away even the world. And I – will prove it!’

.

I made that girl trudge through the mud in my stead. She'd crawled against the muck to bear the gravity of having loved, while braving the man-made evils coating her underbelly, whispering unspeakable desires.

And that girl melted into the light. With a smile.

Even if we were one and the same...

.

The moon dies from the cancer eating away at its core. And I am in my faith absolute that it was from a miracle, Senpai.

We enter through the last page of the narrative of struggle. We make a perfect exit - as you hold my shaking hands firmly, taking me with you into the unforeseeable screen of something radiant. ‘I love you, Sakura.’ I love you, Senpai.

And we wake up on the blue planet below, basking in a softer light under the quiet corpse of the moon, once a tyrant. But we are smiling, and I look down at you with my devotion escaping from my eyes.

.

After we fall into bed with our limbs entangled, relishing in how our bodies wear skin that can touch the world in a way that imprints onto the film of this world's cause and effect, kissing and touching and brushing, after all the festivities, the parade, when we both lay on the sheets slick in our sweat, letting the night air cool us,

and when I fall asleep,

you will wonder about what happened to that girl.

You will remember her smile, and how her face looked exactly the same as mine when she disappeared before a screen of brilliant white light - how she didn't even get much of a goodbye in before dissipating into the drawl of what must have been punishment long overdue. How she burned bright - and out. You will remember how that light took only her, and how you'd cheated it. And you will wonder if she was truly dead. You will wish to see her again.

And after smiling and sniffling to memories of her peppy performances on air, her surprising generosity, her cheeky remarks, her love, for humans, the world, and you,

you will fall asleep, turning your body to where the window is, showing the full moon. Your back to my back.

And I would have, in truth, stayed awake for longer, taking in how the mattress sinks ever so slightly from your nostalgic sigh.

I would recall a story of a princess and the pea underneath her mattress, and laugh silently. I would let fear make something ugly of me in the face of what really is your compassion, and I would let the tears fall as proof. You put so much trust in me, but I still see a competition in how much we loved you, Senpai. Maybe it was her victory all along, and not a joint one? Maybe the part of her that likely resides within me would berate me over this. But I won't be convinced without a 'you're my number one'.

In a split second, a million images of humanity's heroes who commit patricide to eventually leave their hometown flash by my mind. The moon glows outside like a phantom. The blanket feels like a shroud. I want to know if this is right. I could have only made it this far if I was your number one... right?

But I want her to see you again. I still... I still love that girl.

I made that girl trudge through the mud in my stead. She'd crawled against the muck to bear the gravity of having loved, while braving the man-made evils coating her underbelly, whispering unspeakable desires.

And that girl melted into the light. With a smile.

Even if we were one and the same, she was now immortalized as BB. The warmest glow humanity has ever witnessed on the moon. She did you proud. If she did you proud, by reflecting the very light you radiate as your best prized weapon, then - how could I not thank BB? I still love her - in my image, yet her own person. Yes. Person…

And so, I would fall asleep to the quiet rise and fall of your chest.

◇

And one day, you will wake up to my voice having taken a particular grating snideness, and you will stare in disbelief, let out a strange laugh, then run into my arms, saying "I missed you, BB."

And my/her eyes would flood with tears.

That is what I think. One of these days, for sure. Because I haven't given her up, either. I let her trudge through the mud for you. I want to bathe her, tell her I loved her, as a person of her own. Because BB was BB. She was brave, and had sacrificed everything to save you. As well as myself.

So, hello, Senpai. Long time no see. Miss me?