The Echo Chamber of Despair
For three agonizing days, Hikata Yakasuke held fast to his resolve. He saw Akio Hukitaske in the halls—the intense violet eyes, the startling blue hair—and he quickly executed a strategic retreat, veering into crowded stairwells or ducking into the nearest room. He maintained his performance for the rest of the student body, a non-stop barrage of easy jokes and infectious, if slightly frantic, laughter. He was protecting his hero, keeping the antiseptic purity of Akio Hukitaske untainted by the bloody reality of the Yakasuke family.
But the silence that had once been his shield now felt like a tomb. The brief, solid warmth of Akio's embrace had shattered Hikata's carefully constructed sense of self-sufficiency. Before Akio, Hikata was alone, but he was functional. Now, every laugh felt hollow, every punchline a lie, because the one person who had truly seen him was gone.
He found himself back in his self-imposed sanctuary: the dusty storage closet behind the art room. This time, he didn't bring his lunch. He sat on a paint bucket, his head bowed, and allowed the silence to rush in, hoping it would drown out the rising tide of internal panic.
Instead, the silence became a canvas for his memories.
The Ghosts of the Apartment
The memory started with his Father. Not the dead one, but the stranger before, the brilliant, perpetually hopeful failure. Hikata saw him hunched over a worktable in their cramped apartment kitchen, pieces of wires and glass strewn around, a wild, almost frantic excitement in his eyes.
"One more component, Hikata! Just one! This formula... it won't just solve our problems; it'll change the world! We'll be rich! We'll be safe!"
Hikata remembered the infectious, desperate hope. His father's face, etched with failure but lit by a stubborn, childlike dream. Hikata had loved that dream, clinging to it like a lifeline. But now, in the closet's darkness, the image began to degrade. The hopeful grin stretched too wide, morphing, becoming frantic, then manic, until it seamlessly became the last, terrified rictus of pain his father wore just before the heavy blow that ended his life.
The memory shifted to his Mother. Her hands, rough from working three jobs—a waitress, a cleaner, a factory worker. She was perpetually exhausted, her spirit worn thin, but when she looked at Hikata, her eyes held the infinite, selfless love of a true hero.
He heard her voice now, soft as a lullaby: "Don't worry, little hero. Just laugh. Laughter makes the pain quiet. It's your shield. Never let them see the wound."
But as the scene replayed, the love in her eyes slowly drained away, replaced by the profound, exhausted nothingness she wore in the moments before Hakurage turned on her. That vacancy, that look of a soul who had simply surrendered, was more damning than the sound of the final blow. Her face distorted, the stressed, tired lines sharpening into a ghastly, silent scream of abandonment, blaming him for not being strong enough to prevent the horror.
And then, Hakurage. His older brother. Hikata desperately tried to hold onto the image of the thirteen-year-old Hakurage, the one who had laughed genuinely and taught him that jokes were a shield. The one who had patched him up after clumsy childhood accidents.
But the kind face was a ghost now. The memory flickered, jumping to the later years. Hakurage, aged nineteen, his hands becoming instruments of cruelty. Hikata felt the phantom pain of the broken rib, the cold, detached look in Hakurage's eyes as he beat him for a dirty floor. The memory spiraled, faster and faster, until Hakurage's face snapped into the monstrous sneer of the night he killed their parents.
The face didn't stop there. It twisted further, becoming a grotesque mask of pure, homicidal joy—the vacant, horrifying smile Hakurage wore over their mother's body. This final image was no longer just a memory; it was a vortex of despair, pulling Hikata into the conviction that everything he loved turned to ruin, and everyone he connected with was destined to be stained by his chaos.
You are alone. You are chaos. You are the poison.
The Apotheosis of the Hero
Hikata squeezed his eyes shut, hands pressed against his temples, trying to physically force the images back. His breathing was shallow, rapid. He felt the familiar, terrifying pull towards the abyss—the raw, exposed feeling that made him reach for a shard of glass years ago.
If I don't laugh, I die. If I don't joke, I drown. If I get close to Akio, I kill him.
His memories of his family, his entire foundation, had finally fused into a single, overwhelming truth: The Yakasuke bloodline was a formula for destruction. Akio, the mighty, scarred, quiet hero, was too pure, too important to be exposed to it.
But the vortex of despair, the blackness of the closet, could only hold him for so long. Just as the darkness threatened to consume him, another image began to assert itself, cutting through the gore and the blackness.
It was Akio. But not the student.
The image was a vivid, sudden flash—a figure standing in an impossible, blinding light. The figure was young, intense, wearing a fierce, unyielding resolve. His hair, instead of light-indigo-blue, was slightly darker, pulled back. Around his forehead was a vibrant, crimson headband, flapping in a wind that didn't exist. He was holding two glowing swords, an emerald one and a black one, and he was staring down an unseen, monumental evil.
This was the hero of his mother's bedtime stories, but real. This was the legendary Pharmacist-Hero, the Murakaze heir, the greatest pharmacist to ever live, the one destined to face the impossible blight of the Yaka Lab. This was the ultimate expression of salvation.
Hikata didn't know how he knew this image. It was an intuition, a spiritual resonance that went deeper than logic. This was the figure Akio Hukitaske was destined to be.
The image of the crimson-banded hero was a firebreak against the overwhelming flood of his family's horror. It was Akio, but in his purest, most essential form: a savior who transcended simple human weakness.
And then, the hero's face morphed again, pulling back from the bright light, becoming the Akio of the present—the student sitting alone under the ginkgo tree, quietly studying his mysterious notebook. The one who had hugged him. The one who had said: "Just move forward. The formula for healing starts with the courage to stop running."
The Forced Formula
The memories shattered. Hikata gasped, pulling in a ragged, desperate breath. He was back in the cold, dusty closet. His hands were shaking, not from fear, but from the sheer emotional exertion.
He had been circling the drain, allowing the truth to drag him down. He had faced the full, hideous truth of his brother's murderous betrayal, the tragedy of his parents' death, and his own profound isolation.
And the only thing that had dragged him out was the image of Akio.
Hikata slowly stood up from the bucket. He ran a hand over his face, scrubbing away the cold sheen of sweat and the lingering terror. The choice was terrifyingly simple: continue the isolation, and let the grief and the memories consume him, leaving him nothing but a shell waiting for the final collapse; or, choose connection, even if it meant risking Akio's safety.
I need a bandage, he thought, remembering Akio's words. And Akio is the only one who has it.
He couldn't be a conventional friend. He couldn't share the truth. But he could be the friend Akio needed. The shield, the distraction, the release valve for the pressure Hikata had clearly sensed in the other kid.
Hikata straightened his uniform, pushing his shoulders back. He looked down at his own clenched fists, then slowly unclenched them. The forced smile, the one that used to be an apology, now hardened into a weapon of profound, dedicated friendship.
He adjusted his hair, adjusted his collar. He spoke to the empty closet, his voice low and utterly resolute.
"Snap out of it, Yakasuke. Embrace the despair. Use it. Turn the poison into an antidote. You are going to be his friend, and you are going to protect him by being exactly what you are."
He walked to the door, pulled it open, and stepped out into the loud, indifferent hallway. The bell was ringing for the next period.
He walked with purpose now, ignoring the looks, ignoring the pain. He knew where Akio would be—in their shared last-period chemistry class, sitting alone near the back.
Hikata pasted on the brightest, most blindingly fake grin of his life. It stretched his cheeks, but it didn't reach his eyes. His laughter, when it came, was loud, boisterous, and entirely empty of genuine mirth. It was a declaration of war on his own silence.
He reached the classroom door. Akio was already there, notebook open on his desk, staring out the window, his posture radiating quiet, intense focus.
Hikata paused at the doorway, taking one last, steadying breath. Whether Akio Hukitaske liked it or not, he vowed silently, Hikata Yakasuke would become his true friend.
He swung into the classroom, his energy a jarring intrusion on the quiet atmosphere.
"Yo, Doctor Doom! Guess who decided to bless this dismal period with his presence! Don't worry, I've got enough jokes to save this class from the tyranny of the periodic table—unless you've finally figured out the formula for eternal youth, in which case, I call dibs on the sidekick position!"
Akio slowly turned his head, his violet eyes meeting Hikata's frantic, laughing gaze. He didn't smile. He didn't flinch. He simply looked at the kid who was running toward him, even while trying to push him away.
Akio closed his notebook, stood up from his desk, and began walking forward, not toward the teacher, but directly toward Hikata.
(The screen cuts to black.)...