章節 3: EPISODE - 3 - A Smile That Shouldn't Exist
[MA 15+ - Contains graphic violence, death, severe psychological trauma, and suicidal themes]
The return to consciousness was different this time. No convulsions. No screaming. No violent rejection of reality's cruelest joke. Mahitaro's eyes simply opened, pupils adjusting to the familiar morning light with mechanical precision. The tatami beneath his cheek was damp with the usual aftermath—bile, saliva, the metallic residue of blood from bitten lips. The stench of stomach acid hung in the air like a persistent ghost.
He didn't move. Not for a long time.
His body lay sprawled where it had collapsed, one arm bent at an awkward angle beneath him, his cheek pressed into the puddle of bile. The physical discomfort registered somewhere in the distant catalog of his senses but failed to generate any response. Pain had become just another piece of background noise, no more significant than the sound of traffic filtering through his window. Loop four?, his mind supplied with clinical detachment. Or is it five? Does it matter!...
The ceiling stared back at him, a canvas of unchanging white that had witnessed every iteration of his resurrection. He counted the cracks running through the plaster—seven major fissures, dozens of smaller fractures branching off like a network of dead veins. He'd memorized them by now, could trace their patterns with his eyes closed.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours. The sun climbed higher, its light shifting across the room in increments that once would have marked the passage of time but now only emphasized its meaninglessness.
Eventually, his body moved. Not through will or intention, but through the same autonomic impulse that forced his lungs to breathe and his heart to beat. Survival instincts operating independently of conscious desire.
He pushed himself upright, his arms trembling slightly from disuse or weakness or the accumulated trauma of multiple deaths—he couldn't tell which and didn't care to investigate. The room tilted, then stabilized. His stomach churned but produced nothing. He'd long since emptied himself of everything except the hollow ache of existence.
The mirror across the room reflected a stranger. Mahitaro stared at the apparition—skin the color of week-old newspaper, eyes sunken into skull-like sockets, lips cracked and bloodless. The face of someone who'd died several times over and been denied the mercy of staying dead.
I look like a corpse wearing my skin, he thought with something approaching dark amusement. The emotion felt foreign, out of place, and immediately dissolved back into the vast numbness that had become his default state.
He didn't bother cleaning himself. What was the point? The uniform hanging on his desk chair would cover most of the damage. The rest—the hollow eyes, the death-pale skin, the tremor in his hands—those were things no amount of preparation could hide. And of course even if he tried to prevent every so called death, his parents eyes were to disgusting to where they would disobey him staying home. They expected good grades. And they always spooked him, and Mahitaro's fear would always shove him into grief over and over. Even if he tried to sneak out of the house, the school would only call, and he would fail again and again. His depression and the culprit would always overtake everything and reset things over and over.
The walk to school unfolded like a procession through a dream someone else was having.
Mahitaro moved through the morning crowds with the participation of a ghost. Students flowed around him in currents of animated conversation—complaints about homework, excitement about upcoming festivals, gossip about relationships and rivalries. Their voices washed over him like white noise, individual words failing to cohere into meaning. The loops would always make sure he stayed and heard it all again and again.
He felt their eyes. Or imagined he felt them. The boundary between paranoia and reality had eroded through repetition, leaving only a constant low-grade awareness of being observed, judged, found wanting.
A shoulder collided with his—hard enough to send his bag sliding down his arm. Books scattered across the pavement in a spray of paper and binding.
In previous loops, Mahitaro would have reacted. Flinched, apologized reflexively, scrambled to gather his belongings while mumbling excuses. Now, he simply stopped walking and stared down at the scattered textbooks with the same clinical detachment he applied to everything.
Those are my books, his mind observed. I should pick them up.
But the command failed to generate action. His body remained stationary, a flesh-and-bone statue in the middle of the sidewalk while other students diverted around him like water around a stone.
Someone—a student whose name he'd never learned—bent to help, gathering pages that had come loose. She held them out with an expression of concern that Mahitaro recognized but couldn't process.
"Are you okay?" Her voice seemed to come from very far away, distorted as if traveling through water.
Mahitaro's mouth opened. Words should emerge—thank you, sorry, I'm fine, any of the socially appropriate responses. Instead, silence. His vocal cords had forgotten their function.
The kids concern deepened into discomfort. She placed the papers on top of his bag, still lying where it had fallen, and backed away. Mahitaro watched her retreat, noted the relief in her posture at being released from the interaction, and felt nothing about it.
Eventually, his body moved again. He collected his belongings with methodical slowness, papers shoved haphazardly into his bag, order and organization abandoned as meaningless concepts. When he resumed walking, several notebooks remained scattered on the ground behind him—evidence of a person who no longer cared about the maintenance of normal life.
The school building rose before him like a monument to futility.
Mahitaro stood at the gates, staring up at the architecture as if seeing it for the first time. How many iterations had he walked through these doors? How many times had he sat in those classrooms, pretending to care about lessons that would be erased by the next reset?
Education for a life that never progresses, his fractured mind noted. Knowledge that dissolves with each death. What's the point of learning when nothing accumulates?
Students flowed past him, their chatter filling the air with the sound of people who still believed in futures. Mahitaro remained frozen at the threshold, some part of him rebelling against the performance of normalcy one more time.
But eventually, momentum carried him forward. His legs moved, his body navigated familiar hallways, and he found himself at his classroom door without conscious memory of the journey.
The room was already half-full, students clustered in their usual configurations. Mahitaro's eyes swept across them with the efficiency of a security camera—cataloging faces, noting positions, searching for any indication of threat or danger or the identity of whoever would die today.
Because someone would die. They always did. The only variables were who and when and how the blame would inevitably circle back to him.
He moved to his desk, sliding into the seat with the mechanical precision of a routine performed too many times. The wood was scarred with years of student graffiti—initials carved with compass points, crude drawings, confessions of care and hate. In another timeline, he'd added his own mark here. That version of himself felt impossibly distant now, separated by multiple deaths and an ocean of despair.
"Mahitaro!"
The voice cut through his dissociation like a blade through fog.
Eruto.
Mahitaro's body went rigid, every muscle tensing involuntarily. His head turned with glacial slowness, eyes focusing on the figure approaching his desk.
Eruto Kaiju. Alive. Whole. Grinning that characteristic smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes and radiated the kind of uncomplicated warmth that belonged to people who'd never died screaming with their throat cut open.
He's alive, Mahitaro's mind supplied, the observation arriving with the weight of physical pain. He doesn't know. Doesn't remember. Has no idea that I've held his corpse, felt his blood soak through my clothes, watched the light die in his eyes.
"You look terrible," Eruto said, his tone balanced between concern and the casual honesty that defined their friendship. He dropped into the seat beside Mahitaro's, spinning it around to face him directly. "Seriously, Mahitaro. When's the last time you slept? Or ate? You're like a zombie."
The word "zombie" hung in the air, more accurate than Eruto could possibly understand. Mahitaro stared at his friend—at the living, breathing version of someone he'd watched die repeatedly—and felt something crack in the numbness that had encased him.
"You're alive," Mahitaro whispered, the words escaping before he could stop them.
Eruto's eyebrows drew together. "What?"
"Nothing." Mahitaro's voice came out hoarse, damaged from screaming in previous loops. "I just... I didn't expect to see you."
"Wow, we have the same homeroom. Where else would I be?" Eruto leaned forward, his expression shifting into something more serious. "Okay, real talk. You're scaring me. You've been off bit lately, and it's getting worse. You're walking around like a corpse, you're not eating, you look like you haven't slept in days—"
Weeks, Mahitaro thought. From his perspective, it's been weeks. For me, it's been lifetimes compressed into endless repetition.
"—and I know you keep thinking you're fine, but you're clearly not fine. So I need you to be honest with me. What's going on?"
Honesty. The request was so simple, so impossible. How could he explain? How could he make Eruto understand that they were trapped in a temporal prison, that death was coming for him again, that Mahitaro had already memorized the exact shade of red his blood that would paint the overpass?
I can't save you, Mahitaro wanted to scream. I've tried. I've watched you die over and over, and there's nothing I can do. The loop won't let me save you. It only lets me witness.
But what emerged was something else, something safer, something that touched the edges of truth without revealing its full horror.
"I am a corpse," Mahitaro said, his voice flat, emotionless. "I died. Multiple times. And I keep waking up here, in this moment, forced to watch everything happen again."
Eruto's expression froze. For several seconds, he simply stared, his mind visibly working through possible responses to what was either a disturbing joke or a genuine psychological break.
"Mahitaro..." Eruto's voice had gone soft, careful, the tone people used around broken things. "That's... that's not funny. If you're trying to—"
"I'm not joking." Mahitaro met his friend's eyes directly, and whatever Eruto saw there made him flinch. "I know how insane it sounds. But it's true. I've lived this day before. Multiple times. And each time, someone dies. Sometimes it's you. Sometimes it's someone else. But it always ends the same way—with me blamed, arrested, and eventually killing myself. And then I wake up here, and it starts again."
The words hung between them like a confession of terminal illness. Eruto's face cycled through expressions—disbelief, concern, a dawning horror that suggested some part of him recognized the truth in Mahitaro's eyes even if his rational mind rejected it.
"You need help," Eruto said finally. "Professional help. What you're describing—"
"Is impossible. I know." Mahitaro turned away, staring at the classroom window where morning light painted everything in deceptive gold. "So either I'm insane, or reality is broken. Either way, the outcome is the same."
Eruto reached out, his hand landing on Mahitaro's shoulder. The touch was meant to be comforting, grounding, but all Mahitaro felt was the memory of this same shoulder soaked with Eruto's blood.
"Listen to me," Eruto said, his voice taking on a fierce quality. "I don't know what's going on in your head. But whatever it is, you don't have to carry it alone. That's what friends are for. We face things together."
The words were meant to help. Mahitaro knew that, recognized the genuine care behind them. But all they did was twist the knife deeper, because how could Eruto help when he didn't even know he was marked for death?
"You can't help," Mahitaro whispered. "No one can."
The day crawled forward with the inevitability of a funeral procession.
Mahitaro moved through classes in a fugue state, his presence more phantom than student. Teachers called on him occasionally, their voices seeming to come from vast distances. He heard his own voice responding, answering questions with mechanical precision drawn from knowledge accumulated across multiple loops, but felt disconnected from the process.
Eruto stayed close, his concern manifesting as a constant presence. Between classes, at lunch, during breaks—he was there, watching with eyes that mixed worry and determination. It should have been comforting. Instead, it felt like watching someone volunteer for their own execution.
He won't leave me alone, Mahitaro realized with growing dread. Which means when it happens, he'll be right there. Just like before.
Gym class arrived with the weight of prophecy.
The gymnasium's polished floor reflected fluorescent lights in patterns that seemed to pulse with malevolent intent. Students changed into athletic wear, their excited chatter about the upcoming basketball game washing over Mahitaro like noise from another dimension.
"You're doing it again," Eruto said, appearing beside him at the gymnasium wall where Mahitaro was sitting alone in despair. "That thousand-yard stare thing. Where do you go when you zone out like that?"
Everywhere, Mahitaro thought. Every death, every accusation, every moment of suffering compressed into a single point of awareness that never stops burning.
"Nowhere," he said aloud. "Just tired."
"You're always tired." Eruto's frustration was palpable now, edges of fear creeping into his voice. "Mahitaro, I'm serious. After school, we're going to talk. Really talk. No more deflecting, no more fake smiles. Something is seriously wrong, and I'm not going to stand by and watch you destroy yourself."
The irony was so sharp it almost made Mahitaro laugh. You won't have to watch me destroy myself. You'll be too busy dying.
"Sure," Mahitaro heard himself say. "After school."
After school, when the sun would be setting. When they'd walk across the overpass. When the killer would emerge from shadows and paint the concrete red.
The game started. Mahitaro participated with the enthusiasm of a puppet, his body going through motions while his mind counted down the hours, the minutes, the seconds until catastrophe.
Eruto played with his usual intensity, throwing himself into the game with the kind of full-body commitment that made him valuable on the soccer field. He laughed when he scored, trash-talked opponents with good-natured ribbing, existed so fully in the present moment that watching him felt like observing an alien life form.
That's what people who aren't dying look like, Mahitaro thought. That's what it means to live without knowing the end is coming.
The final bell rang with the finality of a death knell.
Students poured from the building in waves of relief, celebrating their temporary freedom with loud voices and animated gestures. Mahitaro stood at his locker, mechanically sorting through textbooks he wouldn't need, arranging items with the care of someone performing a ritual.
"Ready?" Eruto appeared beside him, bag slung over his shoulder, that characteristic grin in place despite the worry lurking behind it.
Mahitaro closed his locker with deliberate slowness. His reflection in the metal surface stared back—hollow-eyed, death-pale, barely recognizable as human. Behind him, Eruto's reflection showed someone still vibrantly alive, unaware he was already a ghost in waiting.
"Yeah," Mahitaro said. "Let's go."
They walked together through corridors emptying of students, their footsteps echoing off lockers and tile. Neither spoke—Eruto perhaps gathering his thoughts for the serious conversation he'd promised.
Outside, the afternoon had ripened into early evening. The sun hung lower in the sky, painting everything in those rich golds and oranges that photographers loved and that Mahitaro had learned to associate with bloodshed. Long shadows stretched across the pavement like reaching fingers, darkness asserting its claim on the world.
They took the familiar route—through the residential district, past the small shops closing for the day, toward the overpass that spanned the arterial highway.
"So," Eruto began as they climbed the overpass stairs, "I've been thinking. About what you said this morning. The time loop thing."
Mahitaro's heart constricted. "Forget I said that. I was just—"
"No, listen." Eruto stopped at the apex of the overpass, turning to face him directly. Below them, traffic hummed—a river of metal and exhaust, indifferent to the drama about to unfold above. "I don't think you're crazy. I mean, I don't believe in actual time loops. But I think you believe it. Which means something is seriously wrong, something beyond normal depression or stress."
The concern in his voice was genuine, almost painful in its sincerity. Mahitaro found himself unable to look directly at his friend, his eyes instead tracking the sun's descent toward the horizon.
"What I'm trying to say is—whatever's happening to you, whatever you're going through, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. We'll figure it out together."
You're going everywhere, Mahitaro thought with bitter irony. You're going to the one place I can't follow, the one place I keep being dragged back from.
"Thank you," Mahitaro whispered, and meant it. "But you can't help. No one can."
"That's where you're wrong." Eruto's hand landed on his shoulder, grip firm, anchoring. "You don't have to carry everything alone. That's what I keep trying to tell you. Whatever burden you're under, we can share it. That's what friends—"
Movement in Mahitaro's peripheral vision.
His body reacted before his mind could process—muscles tensing, head snapping toward the threat, every nerve suddenly screaming danger.
A figure emerged from behind the utility box at the overpass's edge. Dark clothing. Face obscured by a hood. And in their hand, catching the failing light, the unmistakable glint of a blade.
"ERUTO!" Mahitaro's voice tore from his throat, desperate, futile, already too late.
Time fragmented into strobe-light flashes of horror. The killer moving with inhuman speed. Eruto turning, confusion on his face, not yet registering the danger.
The blade arcing through the air, catching sunset light, beautiful and terrible. Mahitaro lunging forward, his hands reaching, trying to intercept, to change fate through sheer desperate will.
And then—contact.
The blade found its target with surgical precision, opening Eruto's throat in a single horizontal slash. Blood erupted immediately—not a trickle or a seep but a pressurized spray that painted the air crimson. Arterial blood, oxygenated, still carrying life even as it fled the body that housed it.
The spray hit Mahitaro's face, warm and obscene, coating his lips with the copper taste of his best friend's death.
"No—" The word came out strangled as Mahitaro caught Eruto's falling body.
But the overpass was empty. The killer had vanished like smoke. The only witnesses were the uncaring traffic below and the dying sun above.
Eruto's hand lifted, trembling, leaving a trail of blood as it rose. The movement seemed to take all his remaining strength. His fingers, slick and red, touched Mahitaro's cheek with heartbreaking gentleness.
And then—impossibly, horrifically—he smiled.
Not a grimace. Not a rictus of pain. An actual smile, small and sad and somehow peaceful, as if he'd found some comfort in his final moments.
"You... don't have to..." Blood choked off the words. Eruto coughed, more blood spraying from his lips, but fought to finish. "Carry everything... alone..."
"NO!" Mahitaro's scream echoed across the overpass, primal and raw, tearing his vocal cords.
But Eruto's eyes were already losing focus, his body going slack in Mahitaro's arms. The blood flow was weakening, not because the wound was closing but because there was less pressure to drive it. The heart was stopping.
That smile remained, though. Even as the light faded from his eyes, even as his final breath rattled out, that small, sad, impossibly peaceful smile stayed fixed on his face.
It was the worst thing Mahitaro had ever seen. Worse than the blood, worse than the death itself—that smile that said it's okay, I forgive you, you'll be alright when nothing was okay and nothing would ever be alright again.
"Wake up," Mahitaro whispered, shaking the body gently at first, then with increasing desperation. "Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!" His voice escalated to screaming, his hands shaking Eruto's corpse with violent force, as if he could rattle life back into the cooling flesh.
But there was no response. Only the sound of sirens in the distance, growing closer. Only the gathering crowd at the base of the overpass, phones raised to document the horror. And then Mahitaro felt a cut a on his throat, and thus it turns out the killer may have accidently got him in a big way to without intending to.
Mahitaro looked down at his hands—coated in blood, Eruto's blood, staining every line and whorl. The blood was already beginning to cool, to thicken, to transition from life to evidence.
Evidence of my guilt, his mind supplied. Because they'll blame me. They always blame me.
Mahitaro touched his face, his fingers coming away with traces of blood—Eruto's blood and his own starting to appear, still under his nails, still in the creases of his palms. He stared at the stains, at the physical evidence of a death he couldn't prevent, and felt the final threads of his sanity begin to fray.
That smile. That impossible, heartbreaking smile.
You don't have to carry everything alone.
But he did. Because no one else remembered. Because the loop isolated him in a prison of accumulated trauma that reset with each death, trapping him with memories no one else shared.
Tomorrow, he thought, I'll wake up. Eruto will be alive. And I'll have to watch it happen again. That smile. That terrible, loving smile as he dies.
The thought was unbearable. And then a spray of blood came from his sliced neck. And everything turned to black.
Because the loop had no mercy. And tomorrow, he would wake to the taste of bile and blood. And Eruto would die again. And that smile—that unbearable, unforgivable smile of love and forgiveness—would haunt him through eternity.
TO BE CONTINUED...
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票