[Fic] Crayons in the Night Sky

Wednesday, 30 April 2025 21:23
usononikki: (Default)

They were still common, even now, the nightmares.

Memories of darkness and pain and a crushing anxiety and loneliness the likes of which he had never thought possible. Of scary monsters lurking in every corner with hundreds of eyes that watched him. Scrutinized him. Of strangers who never knew him and never cared to know him staring him down as he backed into the maw of a mechanical beast, engulfing him with a deafening whir until—

Kokichi woke with a choked, startled gasp on air he shouldn't need.

The hospital room was dark, and eerily quiet with no heart monitor to fill the silence. His lungs were tight as he wheezed through the oxygen mask—a superficial remedy for a deeper, incurable ailment. His entire body ached, and his head was a soupy, discombobulated mess. He whined, blearily pawing at the uncomfortable mask, tears clinging to his eyes.

He sniffled, then coughed when his lungs refused to cooperate, then choked out a stifled sob as the tears spilled over. It was hard to think, it hurt too much, everything was so big and he just a tiny, frail thing. It was lonely. He curled up the best he could, clutching the purple jacket he refused to take off more tightly around him.

It was so cold, being dead.

"Koko...?"

So caught up in his upset, Kokichi hadn't even noticed the presence beside him. Toto-nii groggily reached out to wrap an arm around him, pulling him back against his chest. Kokichi let him, feeling the gentle pressure of the embrace. The tears kept coming, and he shakily tried to wipe them away.

Kokichi tried to ignore that the embrace wasn't as warm as it should be.

"Hey, what's wrong, bud...?" His voice was heavy with sleep. He yawned. "You have a bad dream?"

"U-uh-huh..." Kokichi nodded. Laying on his side like he was, the mask on his face pressed uncomfortably into the pillow. He whined and pawed at it, shoving it off. What'd it matter if it hurt to breathe? He shouldn't need to breathe in the first place. It was dumb. Everything was dumb. And hurt. And wasn't fair.

"Hey now, don't do that," Toto-nii gently chastised him. More awake now, he propped himself up on one elbow to reach around and fix the mask. "You need that for your lungs."

"Don' wan' it, Toto-nii!" Kokichi bawled. Stuck with his back to Toto-nii, he couldn't even hide away in his chest. He had no strength to turn himself around. Instead, he pushed Toto-nii's hand with the mask away and curled up more, burying his face in his hands. "Don' wan' it, don' wan' it, don' wan' it!"

He couldn't take it anymore. Couldn't take the hurt and the fog in his head and the cold and it was dark and scary and everyone kept trying to give him medicine to make it hurt less but it made the foggy head more so he didn't wanna and he could barely move and he couldn't breathe and he couldn't think and the itchy mask was just the last straw!

And then Toto-nii's arms were securely around his trembling shoulders again, and Kokichi could feel the faint puff of his breath in his hair.

"You wanna go stargazing?" he asked softly.

Kokichi wiped his tears again and nodded.

The hospital was nearly empty, practically for show, so sneaking out wasn't the most difficult thing in the world. Kokichi couldn't walk, but that was little issue for the great Luminary of the Stars, who made sure the small boy was securely bundled up in his jacket before hoisting him onto his back. Kokichi draped his arms over Toto-nii's shoulders, sleepily resting his cheek against his back as they snuck through the dim halls.

It was cold, just like Kokichi was, and lacked the gentle tempo of a heart, just like Kokichi did. But that was okay, because it was Toto-nii, and if Kokichi closed his eyes, the sway and pace of his steps felt almost like a heartbeat.

A kind lie.

The sky was clear and the grassy hill the hospital was on was soft. Toto-nii gently lowered Kokichi to the ground so he could sprawl out on his jacket, then sat down to join him a moment later. Together they looked at the stars and Toto-nii told Kokichi stories about how they were formed and the ways they gathered in sweeping galaxies. The stars here were different than the ones they knew, but a lot more real than the projected screen of that dark, scary place.

Toto-nii talked about how, when they got better enough to leave the hospital, he wanted to study the new stars here. Kokichi wanted to hear the stories Toto-nii would tell about them, too.

For better or for worse, they were out of there. They were here now, and if nothing else, they were together.

Kokichi could doze off again with Toto-nii's words reassuring him of that.

Untrue Tags:

[Fic] Irresponsibly Responsible

Sunday, 13 April 2025 20:10
usononikki: (Kuro Neutral)

It was nearly 9 pm by the time Kokichi stumbled through the door to his apartment. What a grueling day—nonstop meetings, public appearances, a late night at the office going through proposals, the usual. He didn't bother turning on the light as he kicked off his shoes and shuffled his way to the kitchen, pulling off his stuffy tie and tossing it in the vague direction of the couch. Politics were such a headache. If Kokichi had the choice, he would have been content to stick with his one nonprofit, and yet the government had gotten in the way of his vision time and time again.

At least things might go a little more smoothly if he managed to get his hands on that seat on the Diet. That would make it all worth it.

The light of the refrigerator blared in Kokichi's face as he sought out something to eat. He stared at the typical assortment of quick and prepackaged options he kept stocked. Nothing particularly thrilling. He was too tired to wait for delivery, too. He sighed, settling on some leftover rice and a pack of natto. Better than nothing, just something to put in his stomach.

Waiting on the rice in the microwave, he fumbled with the natto package more than one might expect. The styrofoam lid didn't seem to want to come off, so he picked at it a little harder and—

The whole container split open, spilling the contents in a sticky wad onto the floor.

Kokichi stared at the mess, his mind almost drawing a blank. What was he doing again?

The microwave beeped. Kokichi blinked.

Ah, right. It was dark. Dinner.

Well, he supposed just rice was fine. Clearly he couldn't be trusted opening packages right now. Kokichi scooped up the mess with a paper towel, dumping it in the trash before retrieving the rice. He collapsed into the stool at the counter, he tried to bring himself of levity by swinging his feet, but stopped just as quickly. He wasn't really in the mood. The silence in his barely-lit apartment was swallowing him. He didn't feel like turning on a show or game like he usually did. The chopsticks felt awkward in his hand. Everything was too big. Frustrating as it was, he stubbornly refused to opt for a spoon.

What was he, a child?

He needed to stop entertaining this.

He had responsibilities.

Work to do.

Changes to make.

He was the Ultimate Supreme Leader, wasn't he?

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He dug it out, finding a text from one of his nonprofit subordinates—his friends—checking in that he got home safely. Did he forget to message her like usual? That was happening more often, wasn't it?

He was probably just tired from the election.

He sent a quick text back, something casual and cheery. It was so easy, almost automatic, like he'd just hit pause on whatever soul-sucking nonsense was going on in his chest. It was surreal how easy it was to forget it was even there when other people came up. And then the screen went dark again, and with it came all the bigness of the world, bearing back down like it was just waiting for him to be alone again.

Kokichi stared at the phone in his hand, and in the quiet, his old classmates came to mind. Ultimate Talent was such a heavy pressure, it was hard to really explain to anyone who wasn't Talented. Some part of him considered opening up his contacts. A part of him he didn't really understand. Everyone was busy with their own Talents.

Who knew where in the world Amami was, or if it was a good time to talk.

Saihara was probably exhausted himself with all the cases he was swamped with.

Momota was on the ISS, for god's sake.

Besides, what could they do that wouldn't just hit that pause button all over again? He could chat them up, catch up, have a little fun with that effortless, reflexive mask just like he did with anyone else. It felt good in the moment, but after? Nothing ever changed, did it? What was he supposed to do? Talk about his problems?

Kokichi wasn't sure he could. Whenever he talked to anyone, it was like they just disappeared from his mind. He couldn't fathom being bothered, and it made appearing as put-together as he was easy. It made it so, so easy. He didn't know how to stop. And then, when it was over, it all came right back, and suddenly whatever happy interaction he had just had disappeared from his mind instead. He couldn't fathom not being bothered.

The world was so big when he was alone.

Why? Things were going well. Why did he have to feel this way?

He abandoned his chopsticks, the rice cooled enough to scoop into his hands. Clumsily, he fashioned it into an obnoxiously large onigiri. He vaguely remembered showing the younger kids how to do this when they got frustrated with their own chopsticks. Leftover rice wasn't the best medium for it, though, the grains having lost their stick in the fridge. When he tried to eat it, it just fell apart into a crumbly mess.

But wasn't that just how the world felt right now?

The rest of dinner was a mess, but at this point, who cared? He'll just clean it up tomorrow, when he was feeling more himself again. He wanted his scarf. He wanted to go to bed. He just left the bowl and crumbs on the counter where they were for tomorrow him. For responsible him.

If the world was gonna feel this big, then he could stand to be a little irresponsible in the comfort of his own home, right?

He still had to take care of himself, but that was fine. He was a big boy.

He didn't fumble with the buttons of his shirt.

He didn't forget half the steps to his bath.

He didn't get tangled up in his pajamas.

He didn't accidentally squirt a gob of toothpaste onto the counter.

He didn't curl up under the blanket, the top of his head barely poking out, clinging to his checkered scarf like a security blanket and chewing on the pad of his thumb.

He was a big boy. He would have to be again tomorrow, whether he liked it or not.

And he would be.

Untrue Tags:

I want to be sick.

Saturday, 1 March 2025 01:32
usononikki: (Kuro Stressed Out)

I don't know why. That's a lie. I do know why. I know why very well. I still have a lot of feelings I need to get through, but I don't feel like I've made any headway on any of them. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I want to cry. I feel lost. I'm getting tied up in other things and I'm losing sight of everything again and it's scaring me.

I want to go home.

I don't feel like I'm feeling enough, and when I don't feel like I'm feeling enough—or like the depth of my feelings are lacking in some way either internally or externally—I want to make myself sick to compensate. I know I shouldn't. I've been trying really, really hard not to cause unnecessary trouble for everyone, but...

It's not real enough. It doesn't feel real enough.

What else am I supposed to do...? I've been trying my best. There are some things I want to examine and talk about, yes, but I'm just not really sure how to start or how to get it to end. It never, never ends. It just keeps going and going and going and I can't keep up. I stutter to a halt and the moment ends and it feels like I've missed the fireworks again.

Maybe it would help if I tried to articulate things in more flash fiction. I just... don't have any ideas at the moment. Ouma's very near and dear to my heart, but there's only so many scenarios I can put him in before it starts to get tedious, I think. Or rather, it feels like there's an expectation for a conclusion? A resolution? I don't ever really have one. I'm more focused on whatever feelings are being conveyed than the actual resolution of them.

So I guess I don't have the words to make it end. Is that it?

I've come to realize that a lot of what I've been doing these past couple days has been in service of feeling better, which isn't what I want here. Feeling better first isn't a resolution to me, it's just putting the bad feelings aside to ignore. It's a bandaid solution. I just... don't know what the real solution could be, and the longer I take to figure it out, the more stale these feelings get. I'm getting distracted. I don't know what to do. I'm scared. I never learned how to do this sort of thing on my own.

Oh god, I feel small. Oh god no. I can't. I can't, I can't, I can't. It's too scary right now. Everything's so scary.

I'm not ready to examine that gaping hole my family left. I don't want to miss them. It's not them that I miss, it's what they should have been. I want... I can't. There's so much. It was so bad, so much pressure all the time, to be able to handle things. More and more and more. Gifted programs and younger siblings and extracurriculars and expectations and more and more and more—

I wonder if Ouma had that kind of pressure growing up, with his Talent.

I learned that being sick was the only way to make it stop. I was a sickly kid. Ever since I was a baby, I would get this nasty, nasty cough. Bad enough to keep me up. Bad enough to choke on and it still wouldn't stop. They told me that at three months they would have to drive me around for hours to get me to sleep when I had that cough.

So I learned very quickly that if I was sick, I got some kind of special treatment. I wouldn't even fake being sick, but I always knew what it meant when I did get sick. I started wanting to be the sick or injured child in games of pretend from third grade. Going into high school, I started neglecting myself in the hopes that I might get sick somehow, like you see in anime when the protagonist suddenly faints from working too hard and everyone rushes to help them.

That's the kind of family I lived in. I was the oldest. I was bright. But whenever I wasn't bright enough, or made a mistake in some way, it was because I wasn't trying hard enough. I started piling on more and more to my plate to please them while secretly hoping I might collapse and have my pain understood.

That isn't to say I didn't communicate, either. I remember having breakdowns around them before, as early as fourth or fifth grade, where I had a breakdown in my mother's arms and all I could tell her when she asked what was wrong was「I don't know!」It's not as if this sort of thing came on to completely blindside them later, although they liked to act like it did.

No, the only time I was ever taken seriously was when I was sick or injured. So now, whenever I feel like this, I want to be sick. I want to starve myself again. I want to waste away and disappear quietly, because I wasn't taught what to do with these feelings other than carry them like rocks in a satchel on my back for the rest of my life. If I have to carry them, then wouldn't it be easier if my life were shorter?

That's not what I really want, though. I don't want to die. I just want... something.

I want to have had a family that cared about my feelings and taught me what to do so I could finally put them down properly. I want to be a child again properly so I can learn. I want to learn to take care of myself. I want to learn to love myself. I want to learn to be loved. I want to be the baby I want to be small I want I want I want but can never have because—

Because I don't know how or where to get it.

I'm an Ouma without his DICE. There's no getting it back. It's gone. I've lost it. I can't be small. I'm an adult now. Or maybe I was always an adult, so I could be what was expected of me. When I was a child, being sick was like how being small is now. I was always doing this. Always trying to make up for something I never had and never could have. Illness, injury, something, anything that could get me some small facsimile of what was missing.

When I broke my arm in fifth grade, it was just a buckle fracture. Nothing major. It wasn't even my dominant arm. The doctor said I was lucky because it apparently was just shy of my wrist. I didn't think I was very lucky, because that just meant it would heal faster. Heal correctly. When I tore my knee in high school, I was upset again at how minor the injury was. What kind of upbringing does one have to have to wish disability and permanent injury on oneself? Does my life even count as severe enough? Am I just being dramatic? Have I been my whole life?

I grew up being told to get a grip. Getting a grip mean putting the stones that were my emotions back in my satchel where they belonged.

Out of sight, out of mind.

It ebbs and flows and ebbs and flows and I can't get it to be consistent one way or the other. I'd rather it flowed, so I could finally empty this glass in my soul that's always full to the brim. Every so often, the emotions pour into it, like one of those games where friends take turns seeing just how much they can pour into it before the surface tension breaks. Every so often, the surface tension breaks, and the tears well up and spill out calmly and quietly. Just enough to restore that tension. The glass is still full, always.

I don't know how to empty it.

Even now I'm just staring blankly at the screen as I try my best to pour my heart out into words that make sense. To solidify how I feel so I don't have to carry it anymore. Why do I still feel like I'm carrying it? Is this not how processing emotions works? Is this not how I make things okay again? This is how they always recommend you should, right? It doesn't make sense.

The smallness comes and goes in waves with the ebbing and flowing. The closer I get to a new spill, the smaller I feel, but it never stays long. It passes along with the spill and quietly goes with the tears. I wish it would stay. I wish I could hold onto it so I could actually grasp the catharsis.

I wonder if Ouma has a similar disconnect from his emotions because of his lies. He's used to carrying them like I do, but doesn't have anyone to help him put them down. Did DICE help him do that? What about the universes where he didn't have a DICE? What about Real Fiction verses, where he was alone. He was always written to be severely abused and bullied. What if he was more like me? Days dragging by in a slog of expectations met, because of course they were. Distant parents who didn't think much about what their child thought or felt about anything in particular, as long as he was doing well enough in school. A boy who wasn't necessarily bullied, but almost longed for it. Longed for something terrible to happen to him just to be validated in the way he felt about the world.

... Maybe I do have an idea for a fic after all. Maybe I should hold onto that so I can try to write it. Maybe it will be cathartic. Maybe it won't. Maybe it will help put into words all these things I feel but can't figure out how to let go properly. Maybe it won't.

I'm still unable to write myself, so maybe it's better if I keep writing Ouma instead.

Until I become him. Properly.

Kurokichi
Untrue Tags:

I'm not entirely sure where to go from here.

Thursday, 27 February 2025 20:30
usononikki: (Kuro Sad)
Or... I guess that's kind of a lie. It's more like... I don't know where to start with everything I want to talk about.

It's hard to really put things into words a lot of the time. I'm so used to not saying anything, or not being listened to, and now that it's changed I'm like a leaky faucet and just can't stop. I don't know where to put it all, or how to approach it, because after a single day of it I already feel disgusting. A nuisance. A burden. A downer.

So maybe I should just keep talking to myself here.

I want to still talk about things here. Some will and some won't be put in the Access List. I don't want to keep all personal posts behind the Access List, especially now that they're allowed to subscribe to this account. That feels... cruel. And pointless. Besides, I want to maybe expand things a little. Use this for other things. What things? I'm not really sure yet, because I still have... a lot of messy emotions to untangle and get out first.

I don't know how or even want to explain the nuances, so I won't, but there won't be Shiro-flavored posts for a while. The way I set things up here, I want to keep things as vague as possible. It's my own little lying game. People can make whatever they want of the dichotomy. It's an Ouma thing for me as much as a safety thing to keep it a secret.

But maybe that's a lie. It's not like anyone reads these.

I have one subscriber that's not them, but I understand if the content here is a little too out there to interact with. I guess I'm just lonely. I don't know. Things were better yesterday, but now they've gotten bad again. Not because of anything in particular, though. It's more like... It felt like things were changing too quickly, and I didn't get a chance to properly feel and appreciate the bad feelings. I know there are a lot, and it's hard to keep track of all of them, and I know that if things look up too quickly, they will fall to the wayside and fester.

I feel like there are two modes to Ouma: he either says nothing about his feelings and takes them to his grave or spills his guts all over anyone who will listen. I'm a lot like that. For a very long time, I operated by default on the former, but now it feels like I was forcibly pushed to the latter. Honestly, I'm grateful for it, but I'm so, so scared of falling back into old habits. I don't want anything to go unacknowledged, so I've just been venting and venting and venting in personal spaces with friends and I imagine it's started to get tiring for them. Especially when the feelings are so visceral and nebulous that I don't even really know what I'm talking about most of the time. I'm just vomiting whatever these feelings are into the text box and trying to make sense of them so I can appreciate and understand them even just a little more.

So others can appreciate and understand them just a little more.

But doing that kind of makes me kind of a drag to be around, doesn't it? I talk about them, and then at some point it feels like the conversation should be over, but I want it to keep going. I don't want it to end. I want to keep feeling. I want to keep being listened to. I want to cry. I think that's something I really miss a lot. Crying.

I don't really know where I'm even going with this anymore. I've said a lot of this already to friends. I don't know why I'm saying it all again for a post on a Dreamwidth account that nobody pays attention to. It feels... performative? Like my friends weren't enough so now I'm out here being a dirty attention whore about it. Which isn't what I'm trying to do... At least, I don't think it is...? I just... feel a lot.

I'm tired of feeling. But I'm more tired of not feeling.

I want to feel in a way where I can finally find a way to let them rest. So I can feel better without being scared that it invalidates all those bad feelings. I want to feel in a way that feels real. Does that make sense?

Like... I'm upset almost all the time. That's my baseline, I think. But then I'll see a joke or someone will do something funny and I laugh on reflex. It gives me this ache in my chest like「What was that? I thought you were upset.」It feels like a betrayal of my feelings to laugh so easily when I can't even cry. I don't know what to do about it other than drown myself in things that make me upset and think about things that make me upset and wallow in all of the ennui, but then there's nowhere for those feelings to go and so they settle into white noise until something suddenly makes me laugh again and you get the idea.

I wouldn't call it anti-recovery, but I don't like the sentiment of「It will get better. This bad feeling won't last forever.」It's not that I don't ever want to feel better. I do want to feel better one day, but I don't want to right now. Maybe I want the bad feeling to last forever, just for a little bit. I want people to see and to know and to understand and appreciate it with me. Not in the sense that I'm vying for pity, but... I don't really know. Something to escape this lonely feeling I have in feeling this way.

I want people to know what my deal is. I want people to want to know what my deal is, so that I don't feel like a parasite rehashing the same thing over and over to any schmuck unfortunate enough to be in the same room as me. It's tiring. It's lonely. I don't know what will make it better because talking about it unprompted feels like I'm whining for attention. A disingenuous cry for sympathy or something.

And yet, here I am.

I guess the other part is I'm just rambling to make sense of my own thoughts and feelings. I feel a lot through music, so I'll just pick a song that fits the vibe I want to examine and put it on loop while I talk or write about things like this to navigate things just a little easier. That's why I always go out of my way to put links in my「Listening」for... I guess myself more than anything. So I can quickly get back to it when I'm reexamining old posts. I do that with fics, too. Since Ouma is an identity to me, I wanted to utilize him as a vessel for my ennui. That's where「He stared at the ceiling.」and「There was... somebody here.」came from.

That's on AO3 now, by the way, as「Who is Under the Hydraulic Press?」, which might have more installments. I don't know. Quick sidebar for a shameless plug in the middle of my ennuiposting. Why not.

Actually, this has gotten really long, hasn't it? I don't even know where else to go. Any connecting thoughts I had have dried up. I just know that I'm still upset and I want to get it down. Solidified in some way before I lose it. It seems at this point I've already lost it, though. Sad.

Maybe a random derail, then, into regression. I'd been small before, especially the past couple weeks, but it's... strange to me. It's one of those things that I get this achy longing for, but there's a listless feeling of... artificiality to it now. That's the wrong word. I don't know what the right word is. I guess it's like, I only seem to be able to really tap into and feel it when I'm really, truly, viscerally upset.

And that's kind of the upset I've been chasing.

Because right now, it's that white noise kind of upset that doesn't feel real. There's this disconnect that I can't seem to breach. I'm too dissociated from my own feelings to really get much out of them, and I don't like it. I'm just upset. I want to cry. I want... things I can't ever seem to have. Things I can't articulate, because while I want to try to have them, some part of me seems to have accepted that I shouldn't, and so it's keeping them from me. Out of sight out of mind. It's always out of sight out of mind.

I'm just a「lie」that makes up「me」, or some such nonsense like that.

Kurokichi
Untrue Tags:

Who Am I?

usononikki: (Default)
Uso-kun

Tell Me A Lie

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