Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Arisu had been staring at his PC long enough that it felt reasonable—logical, even—to assume it was going to explode.

Literally. Sparks, glass, fire hazard. The whole thing.

He sat slouched in his chair, shoulders sagging, spine doing absolutely nothing to support him, eyes unfocused on the glowing monitor like he was waiting for it to confess something. The fan inside his PC whirred, vaguely judgmental. His mug sat abandoned on the desk to his right, a thin ring of dried coffee clinging to the inside.

He should wash it.

He was not going to wash it.

Standing up would require commitment, and Arisu was currently operating on a level of existence where commitment felt hostile.

Instead, he leaned back and stared at the ceiling. There was a crack running diagonally across it—had that always been there? Probably. He’d lived here long enough that the apartment and his brain had started to blur together. Cracks. Mess. Background noise. Normal.

He tossed the softball straight up.

Caught it.

Tossed it again.

Caught it again.

Up. Down. Up. Down.

The chair rotated slowly left, then right, the faint squeak of the base keeping time. The headphones over his ears played nothing. He’d paused the music an hour ago and never restarted it. 

He exhaled through his nose.

This was fine.

This was probably fine.

The softball smacked into his palm again, and this time he missed it. It bounced once against his knee and rolled under the desk. Arisu did not retrieve it. That felt like a future problem.

He suddenly sat up, movement sharp enough to make his chair wobble. His hand came up to tug the headphones off, like they’d been doing something offensive without his consent, and he stared at the screen properly for the first time in—he checked the clock in the corner—

5:03 a.m.

“…Huh.”

He hadn’t slept. Not even a little. He did not even do this iconic keyboard-faceplant. 

Arisu yawned, jaw cracking, eyes watering. He blinked at the ceiling again, because that was apparently where answers lived.

What now.

The question just… sat there.

What now.

He wanted—briefly—to scream into the abyss. Just a quick one. A controlled scream. Indoor volume. But that also felt like effort.

Instead, he stretched, arms lifting over his head until his shoulders protested, then leaned forward toward his PC again.

Fine. Okay. Whatever.

He dragged the window with the error log back into focus. Lines of red text glared at him like they were offended he’d ignored them for this long. His inbox chimed softly in the background. Once. Then again.

He did not look.

Yes, he was working on it.

No, he did not need to reply right now.

Yes, the bug was annoying.

No, that was not his fault, actually.

Arisu cracked his knuckles—purely for dramatic effect; it did nothing—and started typing.

The code flowed easier than it should have, fingers moving on autopilot while the rest of his brain lagged a half-second behind. Fix this. Patch that. Re-route the trigger so it didn’t collapse in on itself like a dying star every time someone cleared a level too fast.

Ten minutes passed. Maybe twenty. Time was theoretical.

The screen refreshed. The title screen loaded cleanly, smooth and obnoxiously perfect.

ALICE IN BORDERLAND

Arisu stared.

No error messages. No stuttering assets. No sudden, inexplicable crashes.

The symbols faded in one by one—♠ ♥ ♦ ♣—crisp and balanced, like they’d never betrayed him in their lives.

“…Okay,” he said to the empty room.

He waited. Three seconds. Five. Ten.

Nothing broke.

A laugh bubbled up in his chest before he could stop it; short, breathless, a little unhinged. “You’re welcome,” he told the screen, because apparently that was a thing he did now.

His shoulders dropped, tension bleeding out of him all at once. He slumped back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his face. He should feel accomplished. Victorious. At least mildly proud.

Instead, his brain immediately went, Don’t forget the character bug.

Of course.

He straightened again, squinting at the character list. Most of them were stable. NPCs behaved. AI paths corrected. Mira’s level; still marked IN PROGRESS, because of course it was—could wait.

But one name sat there like a problem child.

Arisu clicked it open.

Stats popped up on the side of the screen. Intelligence slider dangerously close to max. Adaptability flagged twice. A note he’d left for himself weeks ago blinked at the bottom:

Rebalance later. Too clever. Might break systems.

Arisu frowned.

He vaguely remembered thinking that was funny.

He did not find it funny right now.

“Just one more thing,” he murmured, already digging into the code. “Then sleep. Or coffee. Or… something.”

The screen glowed steadily in the dim apartment. The fan in his PC whirred a little louder, like it was paying attention now.

Arisu didn’t notice.

He was too busy fixing things. That had always been his problem.

And Arisu knew—objectively, statistically—that people loved Chishiya Shuntaro.

The Cheshire.

The numbers didn’t lie. Engagement spiked whenever he showed up. Forums lit up. Comment sections devolved into feral enthusiasm that Arisu pretended not to read and absolutely read anyway. If a player latched onto the game, it was usually because of him.

Which was… fine. Whatever.

He leaned back in his chair, squinting at the character model rotating slowly on-screen. White hoodie, hands tucked into the pockets like he owned the place. White hair falling just messy enough to look intentional. The expression—there it was. That smug, knowing tilt of the mouth, like he’d already solved the puzzle and was waiting for everyone else to catch up.

Arisu frowned.

What was it? The morally questionable decisions? The way he treated rules like vague suggestions? Or—god help him—was it the hair?

“How would I know,” Arisu muttered, rubbing his eyes. “I make the game. I don’t… play it.”

That was true. Mostly. He didn’t play play. He tested. He debugged. He observed. Totally different. Completely professional.

Still.

If he was being honest—which he wasn’t, but humor him—he did know Chishiya better than the others. He’d built him from the ground up. Tuned his intelligence until it sat right at the edge of catastrophic. Diamonds was his specialty for a reason. Logic, misdirection, psychological warfare. Chishiya wasn’t meant to win through brute force—he was meant to outthink.

Sometimes too well.

Arisu scrolled through the bug reports tied to him. A familiar phrase popped up again and again:

Acts like he has free will.
Moves before triggers.
Predicts outcomes without prompts.

Arisu snorted. “Yeah, that’s called good AI.”

Probably.

The Borderlands itself was stable. Card games running clean. Spades behaving. Hearts devastating players as intended—emotionally, not mechanically. Mira’s level was still a mess, but that was a future-Arisu problem.

This—this was smaller. Isolated.

He cracked his knuckles again, because apparently that was his thing tonight, and typed.

He adjusted a condition. Tightened a response loop. Smoothed an edge he might’ve left sharp on purpose, once, because it felt right at the time.

There. That should do it.

Arisu hit save.

The model refreshed.

Done.

Fixing Chishiya. Apparently.

He stared at the screen, chin settling into the palm of his hand. The white hoodie skin idled, breathing animation subtle, almost annoyingly realistic. He clicked through the others without really thinking.

Gray cardigan. Hair pulled into a bun. Softer. Less threatening. Players liked that one too, for reasons Arisu refused to unpack.

The special skin.

White suit. Clean lines. King of Diamonds card held lazily between two fingers. Hair tied low at the nape of his neck, neat. Dangerous.

Arisu stared.

He hated this one.

He also liked it.

Which was stupid. It was just a model. Polygons. Texture maps. Nothing else. He’d designed it late one night—another 5 a.m., probably—thinking it was clever symbolism. Power. Control. Narrative weight.

He exhaled slowly and clicked away.

Enough.

He closed his eyes, head tipping back. His neck ached. His eyes burned. Every muscle in his body felt like it had been holding itself together with spite and caffeine.

“I should sleep,” he said to no one.

The desk lamp hummed faintly. The PC fan kept spinning. His finger tapped against the tabletop—once, twice—purely out of habit.

Then he opened his eyes, reaching for the mouse to shut everything down.

And—

Chishiya was gone.

Arisu froze.

The character slot was empty.

No model. No idle animation. All that’s left was a blank space where he absolutely, definitely should have been.

“…What.”

He blinked. Once. Twice.

Then he sat up so fast his chair screeched, fingers flying over the keyboard as he pulled up the logs.

No crash report.

No deletion notice.

No missing file alert.

“I just fixed you,” Arisu muttered, heart ticking up a notch he did not appreciate. “You were right there.”

He typed faster, scrolling, searching. The code was intact. The assets were still loaded. Every skin file existed exactly where it was supposed to.

Which meant—

Arisu swallowed.

Which meant the game thought Chishiya was still active.

Somewhere.

“That’s… fine,” he said weakly. “That’s probably fine.”

Characters didn’t just disappear. They didn’t move without triggers. They definitely didn’t—his gaze flicked, unwillingly, to the edge of his monitor, to the dark reflection of his apartment in the screen—

No.

Nope.

Arisu laughed once, short and breathless. “Okay. I’m tired. That’s what this is. Sleep deprivation hallucinations. Classic.”

He refreshed the screen.

Nothing.

Typing, typing and typing like his life depended on it. 

Suddenly, he coudn’t get rid of the errors popping up and—

SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT—

His brain did a very calm, very reasonable thing, which was to immediately shut off all higher functions and replace them with a single looping thought: That’s not supposed to happen.

Which—okay—obviously. Characters did not exit monitors. That was a known rule. A foundational one. You could build an entire career on that assumption. Arisu had, in fact. 

So this was probably—probably—his fault. Or his sleep deprivation’s fault. Or caffeine poisoning. Or carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide did things like this, right? Made men hallucinate smug blond sociopaths in their bedrooms? That felt medically plausible.

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He closed it again, like that might reboot him.

Once he stepped out, he jumped off the table. Straightened, rolling his shoulders like he’d just stepped out of a loading screen instead of a $2,000 monitor. 

He looked around with mild interest—Arisu’s unmade bed, the half-empty energy drink graveyard, the sticky note on the wall that said FIX DIAMONDS AI in increasingly aggressive handwriting—and hummed. 

Then he looked at Arisu.

“Huh. You look disappointed. Was I taller in your imagination?”

Arisu swallowed. Or tried to. His throat had apparently unionized against him.

“Y—you—” Great start. Strong. Really selling competence. “You’re not—”

“Real?” Chishiya supplied, tilting his head. That glint—that glint—was there, exactly as rendered. Pixel-perfect smugness. “I’m standing on your floor. If this is a metaphor, it’s a very tactile one.”

Arisu’s gaze dropped despite himself. White Converse. Slight scuff on the left toe. He hadn’t coded that. He definitely hadn’t. His hands curled into fists in his lap, nails biting into skin. Pain registered. Unfortunately.

Okay. So. Not a hallucination. Or possibly an extremely committed one.

“This is,” Arisu said, because silence felt worse, “a bug.”

Chishiya smiled, perfectly on cue. “Of course it is.”

And that—that—was the moment it really sank in. Not the impossible physics. Not the existential implications. Not the fact that his most popular morally questionable disaster of a character was now making eye contact with him in real life.

It was the tone.

Chishiya hadn’t sounded surprised.

Arisu laughed. “Right. Okay. Sure. That tracks. I fix bugs. Bugs happen. Sometimes they—” He gestured vaguely at the air between them. “—walk.”

Chishiya stepped closer. Just one step. Not threatening; not even aggressive. Still, Arisu’s spine locked like a frightened animal had just taken the wheel.

“Relax,” Chishiya said, hands still in his pockets. Observant. Assessing. “If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t have announced myself.”

That was. Not reassuring. At all.

Arisu nodded anyway. Too fast. “Good. Great. Love that. Comforting. So comforting.” His brain was sprinting now, tripping over its own laces. He knows things. He’s supposed to know things. You gave him that. You literally coded this.

Chishiya’s eyes flicked straight to Arisu’s monitor. The red error logs still pulsed faintly on the screen behind him.

“You tried to fix me.”

Arisu’s mouth opened again. Closed. He exhaled through his nose, shaky. “I—yeah. I mean. Obviously. You were—acting weird.”

Chishiya raised an eyebrow. “Weird how?”

Arisu thought of the reports. The forums. He adapts too fast. He feels like he’s learning us. The Cheshire cheats. He thought of long nights tweaking intelligence caps, moral weights, probability curves.

“…Independent,” Arisu said finally.

Chishiya kept staring.

Arisu became aware of several things at once, none of them helpful: the fact that his chair squeaked when he shifted his weight; that his hands were still hovering uselessly over his keyboard like they might suddenly remember how to fix this; that being looked at by your own character was deeply different from being looked at by, say, another human being with flaws and pores and normal eye colors.

These eyes were wrong. Like someone had dragged the contrast slider a little too far and then decided it looked better that way.

He felt exposed. Which was stupid. He was wearing a hoodie. He hadn’t even showered. What exactly was there to expose.

Chishiya’s gaze slid off him.

Just like that. Interest gone. Dismissed.

Oh.

Great.

The character he accidentally pulled out of a monitor was already bored of him.

Chishiya turned instead toward the monitor behind him, head tilting, eyes narrowing slightly.The red warning glow was gone now, the game stabilized, innocent again. A good game. A well-behaved game. A game that did not usually manifest men in white sneakers.

Arisu swallowed.

“So, uh—if you wanted to—go back in there—”

That was not a sentence. That was a hostage note.

“I mean,” he tried again, weaker, “hypothetically. If that’s something you can do. Please.”

Chishiya laughed. Sarcastically.

“Oh,” he said, finally looking back at Arisu. “That’s cute.”

Arisu’s brain tripped over the word cute and did not get back up.

Chishiya stepped closer.

Too close. Immediately too close. He leaned down, head tilting as if Arisu were a puzzle box someone had already half-solved and was now just enjoying shaking.

Arisu leaned back in his chair without meaning to. The chair bumped the desk. The desk vibrated. The monitor flickered.

Everything was fine. This was fine. He was absolutely not cataloging the distance between Chishiya’s face and his own in centimeters like that was relevant data.

Chishiya studied him for a beat longer, eyes flicking over his expression, his posture, the way he was very obviously trying not to bolt.

“…So,” Chishiya said lightly. “You’re the one who made me.”

Arisu winced. Actually winced.

“Don’t say it like that,” he blurted, face twisting. “You make it sound like I’m—like a god or something. It’s weird. Don’t. Please don’t call me that.”

Chishiya’s eyebrow lifted.

“Then what are you?” 

Arisu opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

“I’m—” He gestured vaguely at himself. His hoodie. His very normal, very un-divine hands. “I’m a human. A breathing human. With student loans. Hypothetically.”

Chishiya stared at him for half a second.

Then he laughed again. This one longer. Genuine, maybe. Or at least convincingly entertained.

“Sure. Very funny.”

That was not reassuring.

Chishiya straightened. interest apparently satisfied for now, and turned away.

Toward the living room.

Arisu’s brain screamed.

“No—wait—hold on—that’s a bad idea—”

Chishiya was already walking like a man who had never once in his life been told don’t touch that and listened.

Arisu scrambled to his feet. His legs worked again. Good. Fantastic. Love when that happens during crises.

“Hey—hey—don’t—” He followed, hands half-raised, useless. “You can’t just—this is my apartment—things break here—on purpose sometimes—”

Chishiya reached out and picked up the nearest object: a cheap ceramic mug with a pixelated heart on it. Arisu’s favorite. Chipped. Sentimental. Replaceable but not emotionally.

Chishiya turned it in his hand, examining it like evidence.

“Relax. I’m just touching things.”

Arisu’s eye twitched. He hovered a step behind him.

This was bad. This was so bad. He had absolutely no idea how to stop it.

Chishiya’s hand shot out. He’d grabbed the remote off the coffee table—his coffee table, the one with the wobble in the front leg—turning it over once in his hand, eyes narrowing like he was dissecting it for organs.

“Electricity works here,” Chishiya said, not looking at him. Not a question.

“Yes, obviously. This isn’t—like—Narnia.”

Chishiya hummed.  He didn’t speak for a few seconds after that.

Which was… scary. As shit.

Then he tossed the remote over his shoulder.

Just—gone.

Arisu lunged on instinct, hand slicing uselessly through air as plastic clattered against something expensive-sounding behind him.

“Hey—what the hell is wrong with you?” The words came out sharp, irritated, righteous. Good. Normal. Appropriate reaction to someone throwing your electronics like a side quest. “You can’t just—who does that? That’s rude. That’s—”

He stopped.

Because Chishiya was looking up at him.

And despite the fact that Arisu was technically taller—technically—this was not a winning configuration. Chishiya didn’t move nor blink (like a psycho). Tilted his chin a fraction, eyes bright and amused and very, very focused.

Oh.

Shit.

Arisu’s mouth closed. His shoulders dropped a centimeter. His brain quietly revised its stance on “rude” being the primary issue here.

Chishiya smiled, that familiar, razor-thin curve Arisu had coded deliberately, because villains needed a visual shorthand and this had seemed efficient at the time.

“Interesting. So this is the real world.”

Arisu stared at him.

The real world.

Right.

That was… a lot to put on his living room, actually.

Chishiya’s gaze drifted again; Arisu’s face, then his hair, lingering like it was trying to remember a detail for later replication. He didn’t even pretend not to stare.

Why won’t he stop staring. This little shit—

Arisu’s phone rang.

He flinched so hard his soul briefly left his body.

He looked down at the screen, confused, like phones were a theoretical concept now. Unknown number. 

He answered automatically, voice flattening into something neutral and customer-service-adjacent.

“Hello?”

The sound on the other end was disaster.

Voices. Multiple. Overlapping. Someone yelling. Someone else sounding furious. Words like bug, glitch, missing character, unplayable, where the hell is Chishiya stacking on top of each other until Arisu’s head started to throb.

Ah.

Right.

Millions of people.

Complaining.

He closed his eyes, listened for exactly two seconds longer than necessary, then calmly put his phone on Do Not Disturb.

Silence snapped back into place.

He looked up.

Chishiya was watching his phone now. Intently. Like he was deciding whether to steal it or dissect it.

“…Don’t,” Arisu said weakly, pulling it closer to his chest.

Chishiya didn’t respond, shifting his attention back to Arisu, eyes sharp again.

“So,” Arisu said, because apparently this was his coping mechanism now, “how did you get here?”

Chishiya shrugged. One shoulder. Lazy. Unconcerned.

“You tell me.”

Arisu sighed. The sound of a man who had absolutely lost control of his own narrative.

Yeah.

He was fucked.

Chapter Text

Arisu took a shower like this was a normal problem with a normal solution.

Hot water. Shampoo he’d bought in bulk because it was cheap. Conditioner he forgot to rinse out properly because his brain would not stop looping on the phrase missing asset like it was a personal insult.

He dried off, changed into a plain white shirt and soft pants; house clothes, neutral, safe. It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t warm. The day had decided to be aggressively average, which felt pointed.

By the time his phone rang again, he was sitting on the edge of his bed, towel still half-damp around his neck, trying very hard not to think about the fact that Chishiya was still in his apartment. Touching things. Existing.

He answered.

“Yes,” Arisu said, because apparently that was his personality now.

The man on the other end—one of the funders, one of the studios that had scooped up his scrappy college project and turned it into this—droned on with the practiced calm of someone whose money insulated him from consequences.

Arisu listened. Nodded once, even though no one could see him. Answered with technicalities.

Yes, the server load was stable.

No, there was no memory leak.

The environment shaders hadn’t corrupted.

The card systems were still functional—Diamonds included.

Yes, that was ironic.

On the other end, the man suggested termination like he was talking about closing a window.

Arisu’s fingers tightened around the phone.

Terminate the character.

Rollback the instance.

Purge the asset from live servers.

Reset the design pipeline and rebuild.

Arisu ended the call before his mouth could do something stupid, because his phone immediately lit up again; another studio, overlapping contracts, overlapping voices, all of them circling the same conclusion.

This one was blunter.

“If the character’s unstable,” the man said, “you may need to retire him entirely. Start fresh.”

Retire.

Right.

Arisu stared at the wall opposite him. A crack ran diagonally from the corner of the window frame, something he’d been meaning to fix for months. It had survived earthquakes. It would probably outlive him.

He considered it.

He’d have to kill Chishiya.

Not kill kill. Obviously. That was dramatic. This was code. This was deletion. A controlled removal of an entity that had exceeded its intended parameters.

He could recreate him.

Same intelligence stats. Same dialogue trees. Same smug microexpressions he’d tuned pixel by pixel. He still had the files. He still had the math.

And maybe—maybe—this version wouldn’t be here anymore.

Maybe he’d go back where he belonged. Back into the monitor. Back into something manageable. Contained. Fictional.

That seemed… reasonable.

Arisu opened his mouth to respond—

Something crashed in the kitchen.

Glass. Ceramic. Something expensive-sounding. Something that was definitely not supposed to make that noise.

Arisu hung up.

He stood there for half a second.

Counted to three.

He sighed. Again. It that had lost all theatrical value and was now purely mechanical; lungs in, lungs out, soul temporarily buffering.

Then he left his room.

The kitchen looked like a crime scene committed by someone who’d never once worried about security deposits.

A mug was shattered on the floor. Coffee everywhere. Brown splash marks up the cabinet. One drawer half-open. The remote lay upside down near the trash can, batteries rolling free, abandoned.

And Chishiya stood there.

Leaning against the counter. Hands in his pockets. White hoodie pristine. Not a single drop on him. Of course.

Arisu stopped in the doorway.

“What are you doing?” he asked, because apparently he was still pretending this was a normal conversation between two people who had met under normal circumstances.

Chishiya glanced at him. Then at the mess. Then vaguely toward the ceiling, like the answer might be written there.

“Testing.”

Arisu let out a laugh that surprised even him. Completely humorless.

“Wow. Amazing. Great test. You passed. Clean that up.”

Chishiya didn’t respond.

He stepped over the broken mug—over, deliberately—and started toward the front door.

Oh no.

Absolutely fucking not.

“Oh no,” Arisu said, already moving. “Nope. Absolutely not.”

Chishiya paused, hand hovering near the doorknob, and looked back at him with mild curiosity. “And why would I stay?”

“Because,” Arisu said, gesturing wildly now, “people will see you. And then they’ll ask questions. And then things will go to shit. And then my life will go to shit. So until I figure out how to put you back where you came from—” he waved toward the general direction of the PC, “—you’re stuck here.

Silence.

Then Chishiya rolled his eyes

Actually rolled them. Full commitment. Without hesitation.

Arisu felt it like a personal attack.

“Did you just—” he stopped, incredulous. “Did you just roll your eyes at me?”

Chishiya shrugged. “You make it sound like a hostage situation.”

“It is a hostage situation,” Arisu snapped. “You’re a missing game character who broke my kitchenware and is about to walk into public like that’s not going to cause problems.”

Chishiya’s mouth curved, just a little. “You seem stressed.”

Arisu laughed again. It came out wrong. “Oh, I wonder why.”

They stared at each other.  

“Fine,” Chishiya said eventually, turning back toward the kitchen. “I’ll stay.”

Arisu exhaled, relief hitting him so fast it almost hurt.

Then Chishiya added, pleasantly, “For now.”

Arisu closed his eyes.

He was going to flip off the entire world.

Instead, he had made coffee out of spite.

Just coffee. Powder, water, kettle screaming like it understood him. He asked—because apparently he still had manners—if Chishiya drank it.

Chishiya didn’t answer.

He was sitting on the sofa with his arms crossed, legs stretched out like he owned the place. Which—no. Absolutely not.

Arisu poured one mug anyway. For himself. He took a sip, burned his tongue a little, welcomed it. Then he sat on the opposite end of the sofa, posture straight, expression neutral. Totally Professional. This was a meeting. This wasn’t a character he designed staring holes into his furniture.

They sat in silence for approximately twelve seconds.

“How old are you?” Chishiya asked.

Arisu felt something cold slide down his spine.

“…Why,” he said carefully.

Chishiya shrugged. 

Arisu exhaled through his nose. “Twenty-four.”

Chishiya kept staring.

“I just graduated,” Arisu added, irritation leaking in despite himself.

Still staring.

“BS. Computer Science,” he continued stiffly, because apparently this was a résumé review now.

Chishiya hummed. 

Arisu narrowed his eyes. “Are you going to keep staring or—”

“What’s your name?”

Arisu froze.

He blinked. Once. Then again, slower. “You know,” he said flatly, “normal people start with names.”

“When did you make the game?”

That did it.

Arisu snapped his head toward him. “Why are you so curious?”

Chishiya tilted his head, ever the slightest. Considerate, reasonable. “I want to know,” he said, evenly, “why you’d make my life a living hell.”

Arisu blinked.

Chishiya continued. “A life you supposedly made.”

Oh.

That was—

He frowned despite himself. “The Borderlands was—” he stopped, recalibrated, tried again. “It was a college project. A stupid one. I didn’t even plan to expand it.”

Which was true. Mostly. Technically.

“People liked it. Studios liked it. They funded it. It got bigger. And then it got… out of my hands.”

Things happened, he didn’t say. That sentence had ruined enough lives already.

Chishiya hummed and looked away.

His eyes landed on the curtain. The beige one. Slightly crooked. Absolutely unremarkable.

Which meant nothing.

Except—no. It meant everything. Arisu had coded that habit. The staring. The apparent disinterest. The way he’d look like he’d checked out when he was actually processing every variable in the room. Watching eye movement had always been the tell—

Stop it.

He took a sip of coffee instead. Lukewarm now. Bitter. Deserved.

“I’m Arisu,” he said.

Chishiya hummed again. “I don’t need to introduce myself.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

They sat there.

The silence stretched. 

“How much do you know?” Chishiya asked.

Arisu hesitated.

That question was doing too much work.

“A lot,” he said finally. “I made the game.”

Chishiya glanced back at him. One eyebrow lifted. Barely.

“About me,” Chishiya clarified.

Arisu’s mouth opened.

Closed.

“Well, that depends what you mean by know.”

Chishiya smiled, then uncrossed his arms; a small, deliberate movement—elbows loosening, shoulders settling—as he slid his hands into his pockets like he was about to ask for the time or directions to the bathroom.

“What four-digit number am I thinking of right now?” he asked.

Arisu stared at him.

Of all the things. Of everything.

“That’s stupid. Seriously?”

Chishiya just looked at him, still smiling.

Great. Fantastic. Love that.

Arisu stalled.

He took another sip of his coffee. It was cold now. Had been cold for a while, actually, but he’d been busy dealing with a fictional man invading his living space and dismantling his sense of reality, so apologies if beverage temperature hadn’t been top priority.

He looked at the window. The desk. The slightly crooked curtain. No new information there. Chishiya stayed in his peripheral vision, which was annoying.

This was pointless. He knew that. Guessing numbers didn’t prove anything. Psychic games were fake. Probability was boring. This was—

He sighed.

“One thousand one hundred and eleven.”

Chishiya tilted his head. “Why?”

Arisu rubbed at his face with one hand.

“Because,” he said, already regretting opening his mouth, “if you define a four-digit number as anything from 0000 to 9999, that’s ten thousand possible combinations. Ten options per digit. Ten to the fourth power.”

Chishiya didn’t interrupt. 

“If you don’t allow repeats, it drops to five thousand and forty. Ten times nine times eight times seven. And if you mean a true four-digit number—no leading zeros—then it’s nine thousand possibilities. One thousand to nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine.”

He gestured vaguely, like the math was floating in the air and he was pushing it away from his face.

“A normal person,” Arisu said, “would overthink it. They’d try to be clever. Avoid patterns. Pick something random-looking. Which gives you the advantage.”

He paused.

“So I didn’t.”

Chishiya was still quiet.

“It’s just the first four numbers,” Arisu added, defensive now. “Simple. Easy to dismiss. Which is exactly why—”

Chishiya didn’t speak.

He looked away. Just slightly, as if his attention had slipped, or something across the room had caught his eye. Then—barely noticeable—he blinked.

Twice.

Arisu clocked it.

Filed it away.

Did not, under any circumstances, unpack what it meant.

Anyway. Probably nothing. Characters blinked. People blinked. Fictional men materializing out of video games and passing casual probability tests didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Arisu took another sip of his coffee.

Still cold.

______

He told Chishiya to stay in the apartment.

Stay here. 

Like Chishiya wasn’t currently leaning against the counter with his hands in his pockets, wearing white Converse—white—bright, criminally clean, reflective under the kitchen light—

Why.

Why would Arisu do that.

Why would he program that.

Arisu grabbed his keys before his brain could finish the thought. He shoved his feet into his black Converse—because obviously he wore black. He put on his cap. The dark blue jacket. The jacket that made him look like a normal guy who went outside for normal reasons and did not leave a sentient video game character unattended in his apartment.

“Don’t touch anything,” Arisu said, already opening the door.

Chishiya smiled. That particular one. The one that meant that wasn’t an answerable request.

“It’s not a request.”

The door closed. The lock clicked. Arisu stood there for half a second longer than necessary, staring at the peephole like it might blink back.

He stepped into the hallway and nearly collided with the lady next door. She was juggling a tote bag and her keys, her shoes half off.

“Oh—Arisu-kun.”

“Ah—sorry,” he bowed too fast, then corrected himself mid-motion, which probably looked like he was buffering. “Welcome back.”

“Just came from the bank,” she sighed, adjusting the bag. “Tuition payments. Grandchildren, hm?”

“Ah. Yes.” Arisu nodded seriously, like he had any idea what to do with that information. “Education is… important.”

She laughed. Arisu laughed a beat too late. He made small talk. He asked polite questions. He nodded at the right intervals. He absolutely did not think about white Converse standing in his kitchen.

They parted. Arisu exhaled only once he was out the building.

He pulled out his phone and called.

The street noise swallowed the first ring. The second. The third. He started walking because standing still felt worse. Shibuya unfolded around him; people, screens, crosswalk signals chirping like impatient birds. His reflection slid across shop windows. He looked fine. He looked fine.

“What's up?”

Arisu inhaled too hard. “Heyyyyyy, Yuzuu—”

“Don’t call me that,” Usagi said immediately. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you.”

Arisu laughed. It came out wrong. “Me? No. I mean—maybe. A little.”

He crossed the road on yellow, then immediately regretted it because a bicycle nearly took out his knee and his heart jumped into his throat and stayed there.

“You’re out of breath.”

“I’m walking,” Arisu said, which was technically true and also deeply dishonest. “Listen. I need to see you. Like. Now.”

There was a pause. 

“Arisu. What happened?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“I can’t—” He scrubbed a hand over his face, slowing his steps, forcing his lungs to cooperate. “I can’t explain this over the phone.”

Another pause. The crowd surged past him. Someone bumped his shoulder. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t notice.

“All right. There’s a café on Dogenzaka. I’ll send you the location.”

“Thank you.”

She hung up.

The location pinged his phone. Café. Normal. Tables. Chairs. Coffee. Public. Good. Very good. He flagged down a taxi like his life depended on it, because—well.

The city slid by in fragments through the window. Neon. Concrete. People who did not know shit.

He pressed his forehead lightly to the glass and counted his breaths.

One.

Two.

Three.

Minutes passed.

Arisu paid the fare with shaking hands that he pretended were just cold. The taxi driver gave him his receipt. Arisu took it. He did not remember why. He shoved it in his pocket anyway, because habits were powerful things and he was clinging to them like driftwood.

The café bell chimed when he pushed the door open.

Warm air. Coffee. Sugar. That weird baked smell cafés always had that made you feel like your life could be fixed if you just sat down long enough.

He spotted Usagi immediately.

He always did. Familiar bob. Hiking jacket zipped halfway like she might leave at any second if things got stupid—which, fair. She was stirring her drink slowly, elbow on the table, posture relaxed.

She waved, just a small lift of her fingers. 

Arisu’s shoulders dropped a centimeter.

Okay. Okay. This was good. Usagi was here. Usagi was normal. Usagi did not crawl out of a computer screen.

He walked over. They greeted each other—brief hug, shoulder squeeze, the usual. Nothing dramatic. Which helped. A lot.

They sat.

The server came almost immediately, because of course Usagi had already ordered.

Matcha for her.

Something aggressively sweet for him—this time iced caramel something with whipped cream doing too much.

Either too cold or too hot. Never in between. She knew this.

“Thanks,” Arisu said, wrapping both hands around the cup.

Usagi didn’t say anything.

She just looked at him.

Oh.

That look.

The one she’d given him when he was about to come out and she’d already clocked it three sentences early.

The one she’d given him when he admitted he was drowning in debt and briefly—briefly—considered finding a sugar daddy online.

The one that meant: Stop stalling. I can see through your bullshit.

Arisu swallowed.

He inhaled. Deep. Then—

“Iaccidentallymadeavideogamecharacterandhenowexistsinmyapartmentandhe’ssmarterthanmeandIdon’tknowhowtounmakehim.”

Silence.

Usagi blinked.

Once.

Twice.

Arisu finished his drink in one reckless gulp and regretted it because it was too cold and also lava somehow. He pushed his chair back an inch, muscles coiled.

He could still run.

He wouldn’t get far.

But the attempt would be symbolic.

Usagi folded her fingers together. Slowly. Very slowly. She took a deep breath through her nose.

“Okay. Can you fix this?”

Arisu laughed. It came out thin. “No?”

Her eyebrow twitched.

“What do you mean no,” she said, voice still even, which was honestly a sign for Arisu to start running.

“I mean—technically—maybe? In theory? But practically?” He gestured vaguely with his straw. “He’s sentient.”

Usagi’s calm cracked.

“You made a sentient man.”

“He wasn’t supposed to be—”

“In your apartment.”

“Yes.”

“Wearing shoes.”

Arisu flinched. “White Converse.”

Usagi leaned back in her chair, exhaling sharply. “Arisu.”

“Yeah.”

“What the hell is wrong with you.”

“I ask myself that every morning.”

“This is not funny.”

“I know.”

“This is dangerous.”

“He’s not violent.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I coded his morality tree.”

Usagi stared at him.

“…You what.”

Arisu sank lower in his seat. “It’s a very robust tree.”

She put her hands on the table. Flat. Grounding herself. Or restraining herself. Hard to tell.

“So let me get this straight. You created an intelligent character, gave him autonomy, and now he’s loose in the real world.”

“Yes.”

“And you left him alone.”

“Yes.”

“And you came to me.”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes.

When she opened them, the wrath was controlled. Focused. Surgical.

“You are not allowed to panic,” Usagi said. “You are not allowed to lie. And you are definitely not allowed to go home and pretend this will solve itself.”

Arisu nodded immediately. “I wasn’t going to do that.”

She tilted her head. “You absolutely were.”

“…I was going to think about it.”

Usagi stood up, grabbed her jacket, and slung it over her shoulder.

“Finish your drink,” she said. “Then we’re going to your apartment.”

Arisu’s heart skipped. “Right now?”

“Yes.”

“But—”

“Arisu,” she cut in, already turning toward the door, “if your video game boyfriend decides to leave the apartment before we get there, I am not chasing him through Shibuya.”

“He’s not my—”

She glanced back at him.

Arisu shut up and stood.

They walked.

Which was good. Walking meant forward motion. Forward motion meant he didn’t have to sit with the fact that a character he coded had been real earlier today and was currently unaccounted for. Probably. Maybe. 

Usagi matched his pace without trying. That was annoying. She always did that; matched him without looking like she was matching him. Like gravity just agreed with her.

“So. What game is he from.”

Arisu blinked once. Kept walking.

“Alice in Borderland.”

Usagi stopped short.

He noticed because she made a very specific sound with her shoes. Rubber catching concrete. A tiny skid. She turned slowly, eyes narrowing.

“Don’t tell me,” she said. “Please don’t tell me it’s that freak Niragi guy.”

“It’s not Niragi,” Arisu said too fast, which was always how lies—or defenses—came out of him. “Why would I ever—why would that be my—no.”

She resumed walking. Faster now. Purposefully beside him.

“So who.”

He swallowed. Did not look at her.

“It’s… Chishiya.”

Usagi made a noise. Not a word. A noise. Soft. Considering. The sound someone made when they were flipping through a mental slideshow.

“…Your dream guy?”

Arisu scoffed. Reflexively. Professionally.

“He’s not my dream guy.”

“That wasn’t a no.”

“That was absolutely a no.”

She hummed. “You made him blond.”

“That is not—”

“Smug.”

“—relevant.”

“Emotionally unavailable.”

“That was for narrative tension.”

Usagi grinned without looking at him. “You gave him a lab coat.”

“That was tactical.”

“For what,” she said. “Science crimes?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it.

“…World-building,” he said weakly.

She laughed. “And you’re telling me that this guy crawled out of your game and you’re shocked.”

“I am not shocked. I am recalibrating.”

“That’s shock with a thesaurus.”

They reached his building. The familiar rusted gate. The chipped tile by the entrance that always caught his shoe if he wasn’t paying attention. He tripped on it anyway.

Usagi noticed, but didn't comment.

Inside, the stairwell smelled like someone’s failed attempt at curry from three days ago. Home. He fumbled with his keys. Dropped them. Picked them up. Missed the lock the first time because his hands were doing that thing where they forgot how angles worked.

Usagi leaned against the railing, arms crossed. Watching him with that same look again. The one from earlier. The we are about to have a conversation you are unprepared for look.

He finally got the door open.

They stepped inside.

Silence.

The wrong silence.

Arisu froze.

The lights were off. The curtains were exactly how he left them; half-drawn, uneven, because he never fixed them properly. His shoes were still by the door. The table was clear. No smug blond man lounging where he absolutely should not be lounging.

Nothing was broken.

Nothing was moved.

Nothing was—

Usagi exhaled slowly.

Arisu did the same, a half-second later, like an echo that hadn’t decided if it was relieved or disappointed.

“…Okay,” Usagi said.

“Okay,” Arisu agreed.

They stood there.

Then, simultaneously:

“He’s gone.”

“He’s gone.”

They looked at each other.

“That’s good,” Arisu said quickly. “That’s great. That’s ideal, actually.”

“You’re smiling like someone who just lost a child at the mall.”

“He’s not a child.”

“You coded him.”

“That doesn’t make him—”

She raised an eyebrow.

“…Okay, but still,” he said. “This means the problem solved itself.”

Usagi took off her jacket and draped it over the chair. Casual. Too casual. “Arisu.”

“Yeah.”

“Where would he go.”

Arisu opened his mouth.

Paused.

His brain, helpfully, supplied a list.

He doesn’t know this world. He doesn’t have money. He’s smarter than me. That’s not comforting.

“…He likes high places,” Arisu said finally.

Usagi stared.

“You’re basing that on what.”

“Vibes,” he said. “And trauma.”

She nodded. “So,” she said, rolling her shoulders, already in motion. “We’re finding him.”

“We are not—”

She was already heading for the door.

“—doing that,” he finished to an empty room.

Arisu sighed. Followed her anyway.

They went into the city because that was what you did when you didn’t know what else to do—you enlarged the problem until it felt proportional.

Arisu followed Usagi without questioning it. This was not a conscious decision. It was muscle memory. Life law. If Usagi moved with purpose, you let her. The universe had proven this statistically sound.

Shibuya swallowed them whole.

Noise. Screens. Foot traffic doing that irritating human thing where everyone pretended they weren’t about to collide. Neon ads screaming optimism. Arisu registered all of it dimly, like background rendering he hadn’t optimized.

They cut through a side street first. Then another. Usagi moved like she always did; efficient, decisive, mildly terrifying. She glanced up at rooftops, fire escapes, stairwells that led nowhere useful. Arisu followed her gaze automatically.

Every balcony looked suspicious.

Every reflection felt smug.

“So,” Usagi said casually, as if they were discussing groceries. “What happens if people find out.”

Arisu tripped on air.

“What.”

She slowed just enough to make sure he was beside her. “If someone sees him. If he talks. If the internet does its thing.”

Arisu’s brain obligingly lit itself on fire.

“Okay so—first of all—that assumes they believe him. Which they wouldn’t. Because why would they. People don’t just accept that fictional characters—”

He made a vague clawing motion at reality.

“—escape. That’s not how anything works. There would be skepticism. Debates. Threads. Someone would call it performance art. Someone would accuse him of clout chasing. There’d be think pieces.”

Usagi nodded. “And then.”

“And then someone would notice inconsistencies. His vocabulary. His lack of documents. The fact that he doesn’t Google things the way normal people do. Someone would film him doing something weird. Someone always films.”

He could hear his own voice speeding up. Hated it. Didn’t stop.

“There’d be conspiracy theories. Government interest. Religious interest. Elon Musk interest. Which is the worst one.”

Usagi stopped walking.

Arisu didn’t. He took three more steps before realizing she wasn’t beside him anymore.

He turned.

She was already there.

Hands came up. Warm. Firm. Palms pressing against his cheeks, thumbs dangerously close to the corners of his mouth. She held his face like she was lining up a shot.

“Arisu,” she said calmly.

His brain short-circuited.

“Yep.”

“Breathe.”

He tried. Failed. Tried again.

She leaned in slightly, laser focused.

“You are spiraling. Out loud.”

“I am problem-solving.”

“You are inventing the apocalypse.”

“That’s still a kind of solving.”

She squeezed his cheeks just enough to be annoying. Grounding. Infuriatingly effective.

“Get your shit together.”

He blinked.

“…Or else?” he offered weakly.

Her eyes flicked to the rooftops. Back to him. “Or I will leave you here to panic alone in Shibuya and I know you hate crowds.”

That was unfair. 

He swallowed. Nodded once.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’m together. Look. See? Together.”

She let go. Stepped back. Watched him for half a second longer than necessary.

“Good.vNow walk.”

They walked.

Up a pedestrian bridge. Past a parking structure. Around a building with a rooftop café that charged too much for vibes. Arisu scanned every railing. Every shadow. Every place someone smug and uninvited might perch.

Nothing.

They paused near a stairwell that led to an overlook. Usagi leaned against the rail, elbows resting, eyes still searching.

She didn’t look at him when she asked, “How did he get out.”

Arisu stared at a billboard advertising a mobile game that looked aggressively mediocre.

“I don’t know.”

She glanced over. Waited.

“I really don’t,” he added. “There was no mechanic for that. No exit condition. No—this wasn’t even a bug. This was—”

He waved vaguely again. Reality. Stupid reality.

“I didn’t code a door. I didn’t even code a window.”

Usagi hummed. Thought about that.

“So the game didn’t break. The world did.”

“That feels rude.”

She smiled faintly. “You’re saying the laws of physics bent but your code didn’t.”

“…Yes.”

She nodded. They stood there for a moment, city breathing around them.

Then Usagi pushed off the rail. “Okay. Then we keep looking.”

Arisu sighed. Followed.

They found a crowd by accident. Or maybe the crowd found them. Either way, it was the sudden density of people, phones up, voices pitched high, that very specific urban sound of something is happening and I need to record it—that made Arisu’s stomach drop before his brain caught up.

Not his problem.

Then, like a trick of the rye—

White.

“Oh, Oh, that’s—”

Usagi was already running.

“Usagi—wait—”

She did not wait. She launched forward like this was what her legs had been training for their entire lives. Arisu swore under his breath and went after her, reminiscing every skipped cardio day since middle school. Why do I trust athletes.

Running was terrible. Shibuya was not designed for this. People shouted. Someone cursed. A man hauling two shopping bags nearly took Arisu out at the knees. He dodged a stroller by inches and had the brief, deranged thought that if I die here, this is going to be a very stupid headline.

White flashed again. Turned a corner.

Usagi vaulted a short railing.

Arisu did not vault. He took the stairs.

By the time he rounded the corner, Usagi had already caught him.

Voila.

Chishiya was in a headlock.

It was—jarring. Less because of the violence (Usagi was efficient, not cruel) and more because Chishiya looked…fine. Annoyed, mostly. Hair still perfect. White jacket unwrinkled, somehow. He even had the audacity to look bored as Usagi locked her arm around his neck and braced her stance.

“Let go,” Chishiya said coolly.

“No,” Usagi replied, equally calm.

Arisu skidded to a stop a few steps away, hands on his knees, trying not to throw up or die.

“Okay—hi—everyone—great energy—”

Chishiya moved.

It happened fast. A shift of weight. A sharp twist of his shoulders. He drove an elbow back—and Usagi hissed as her grip loosened. Chishiya ducked, hooked her leg, and suddenly they were both off-balance, momentum spiraling into something much more serious.

“Oh my god,” Arisu breathed. “Why did I give him combat proficiency.”

Usagi recovered instantly, but Chishiya was already repositioning, eyes sharp now, interest flickering to life like a switch flipped the wrong way.

Arisu didn’t think.

Thinking was overrated.

He lunged forward and grabbed Chishiya by the sleeve and—

“Knees,” Arisu blurted. “Your left knee, I tuned it wrong—”

Chishiya stiffened.

Actually stiffened.

Usagi didn’t waste the opening. She swept his legs clean out from under him, slammed him onto the pavement, and pinned him again before he could recover.

There was a brief, chaotic second where Arisu expected shouting. Sirens. Applause. A Marvel soundtrack.

None of that happened.

Chishiya went still.

Just—reset. The tension drained out of him like someone had toggled a setting off. His face smoothed back into that infuriatingly neutral expression, eyes half-lidded, mouth curled in disinterest.

Usagi held him there for a beat longer. Then she released him and stepped back.

“You okay?” Arisu asked her immediately, hands hovering uselessly.

She rolled her shoulder once. “Fine.”

Chishiya sat up slowly, brushing imaginary dust off his jacket. He looked at Arisu.

“That was rude.”

“Oh, I’m furious,” Arisu snapped automatically. “Absolutely livid. You had one job.”

“You told me to stay,” Chishiya corrected.

“Yes.”

“I left.”

“Yes, that’s—”

Usagi stepped between them. “Why did you run.”

Chishiya glanced at her, really looked this time.

Something in his expression shifted.

“…You,” he said. “That’s impossible.”

Usagi’s jaw tightened. “You know me?”

Chishiya smiled faintly. “Of course. You were difficult to beat.”

Arisu groaned. Loudly.

“Nope. Nope, okay, pause, time-out—this is on me.”

Both of them looked at him.

“I made a version of you,” Arisu said to Usagi quickly. “In the game. As a gift. You know. Hiking stats. Survival proficiency. Very cool jacket. She’s—she’s not you-you. You are you-you. This one is—”

He waved vaguely between them.

“Code.”

Usagi stared at him. “You put me in a video game.”

“As a compliment,” Arisu said weakly.

Chishiya tilted his head. “So you’re not from the game.”

“No,” Usagi said flatly. “I’m human.”

“Huh,” Chishiya said. He leaned back on his hands, studying her like a puzzle that had suddenly gained extra pieces. “That’s disappointing.”

She bristled. “Excuse me?”

Arisu stepped in. “He means—badly. He always means things badly.”

Chishiya smiled at that.

Usagi crossed her arms. “I don’t trust him.”

“That’s healthy. I don’t either.”

____

Arisu’s living room was too small for this.

It had always been too small—he’d known that—but now it was actively hostile. The couch, in particular, had betrayed him. It was a normal couch. Beige. Slightly sagging in the middle from years of bad posture and worse decisions. It had never once tried to kill him before today.

And yet.

Usagi sat on his left.

Chishiya sat on his right.

Arisu sat in the middle like an offering.

They were not touching him. That would’ve been easier. This was worse. This was close enough to register heat. Close enough to smell.

Why could he smell them.

Chishiya smelled like cucumber antiseptic. Hospital-adjacent. The kind of scent that implied both intelligence and a complete lack of concern for your feelings. Arisu had picked it in the character creator because it felt funny at the time. Clinical menace, he’d called it.

Now it was in his lungs.

Usagi smelled like moss and citrus. Outdoors. Clean sweat. Wind. Like someone who owned more than one pair of shoes meant for climbing things. It was familiar, comforting.

It was also directly pressed into his left shoulder.

Why. Why were they angled inward. Why couldn’t they sit across from each other like normal people. Why was he the buffer. Why was this his life.

Silence stretched.

Arisu could hear the fridge hum. The clock ticking. The indistinct buzz of the city outside. Every sound was extremely loud.

Usagi broke it.

“So.”

That was it.The verbal equivalent of rolling up your sleeves.

Arisu’s soul left his body.

“So,” Usagi continued, turning slightly—not toward Arisu, which felt pointed—but toward Chishiya. “You ran. You fought me. You clearly know how to handle yourself.”

Chishiya smiled, barely there. His eyes flicked to her, then back forward, like he was humoring the room.

“Observation skills. Impressive.”

Usagi did not smile.

“Who are you?”

Arisu inhaled sharply.

“I already—” he started.

Usagi lifted one finger. Not at him. At Chishiya.

Arisu shut up.

Chishiya glanced at the finger. Then at Arisu. Then back to Usagi.

“Am I being interrogated,” he asked mildly, “or welcomed?”

“Interrogated. Welcome comes later. If you earn it.”

Arisu squeezed his knees together. He wanted to crawl into the couch. Or scream into a pillow. Or go back in time and major in literally anything else.

Chishiya hummed. He leaned back slightly, arm draped along the back of the couch.

“And what exactly is my crime?”

“You exist.”

Arisu made a strangled noise. “She doesn’t mean—”

Usagi did not look at him. “I mean you appeared out of nowhere, ran through a public street, and tried to incapacitate me. That’s a starting point.”

Chishiya’s gaze sharpened a degree. 

“You attacked me first.”

“You were fleeing.”

“From confinement.”

Arisu flinched. “It wasn’t confinement, it was—”

Usagi finally looked at him then. Soft. Brief. The look that said I know. Then she turned back to Chishiya.

“You don’t leave without telling him. You don’t hurt people. You don’t disappear.”

Chishiya’s eyes flicked to Arisu again.

“And you,” he said slowly, “allow this?”

Allow.

As if Arisu had ever been in charge of anything in his life.

Arisu laughed. “She’s—uh—establishing boundaries.”

Usagi nodded. “Exactly.”

Chishiya tilted his head. Studied her.

“You’re his girlfriend,” he concluded.

Arisu choked. “She’s not—”

“Or his bodyguard,” Chishiya added thoughtfully. “Either way, you’re very invested.”

“I’m his friend,” she said. “And you don’t get to hurt him.”

Chishiya blinked once.

Arisu stared straight ahead at the TV screen. It was off. His reflection stared back at him. He looked like a man awaiting sentencing.

“I didn’t hurt him.”

“You stress him out.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

Arisu laughed again. “It kind of is.”

They both looked at him.

He stopped laughing.

Chishiya’s gaze lingered. 

Arisu’s stomach dropped. “

Stop noticing. Please. I am begging you.

Usagi leaned forward, elbows on her knees. The couch shifted. Arisu nearly slid into the void between them.

“Here are the rules. You stay here. You don’t leave without telling us. You don’t cause scenes. You don’t hurt anyone.”

“And if I don’t agree?” 

Usagi’s voice stayed calm. “Then I stop being nice.”

Chishiya smiled. Wider this time.

Arisu shut his eyes.

He escaped to the kitchen under the pretense of getting water.

This was a lie. He did not need water. He needed several things, none of which were available at convenience stores or inside his own skull.

Usagi followed him without a word.

The kitchen light was almost blinding. The counter was cluttered—half a loaf of bread,, his phone face-down and vibrating again. He didn’t flip it over. He already knew.

Silence. Smaller than the living room silence. 

“He’s still there,” Usagi said quietly, not looking at him. She leaned against the counter, arms crossed. Guard stance. Always.

“He’s not going anywhere. He likes couches. It’s canon.”

She gave him a look.

“People are going to see him. They already did.”

Arisu nodded too fast. “Yeah. But it’s Shibuya. People see worse before breakfast. They’ll think he’s a cosplayer.”

“A very convincing cosplayer.”

“He always was,” Arisu muttered. Then, louder, “Look—there are meetups. Photo shoots. People dress better than him on weekends.”

Usagi waited.

Arisu exhaled. “I can’t keep ignoring the calls.”

She glanced at his phone. It buzzed again, stubborn. Studios. Players. Messages piling up like a stack of plates he was pretending not to see.

“You’re working on the game,” she said.

“I am. I am actively working on it. It’s just—”

Just that one of his characters was currently sitting on his couch and critiquing his life choices.

Usagi sighed. “I don’t know shit about programming,” she said. “But can’t you just… reset him?”

The word landed wrong.

Reset.

Arisu’s fingers curled around the edge of the counter. He stared at the chipped laminate.

“I—” He hesitated. Which was answer enough.

Usagi closed her eyes for half a second. Then she opened them.

“See, this is your problem.”

He laughed weakly. “I have several problems.”

“Arisu. He’s a video game character.”

He nodded. Again. Too fast. “I know.”

“You need to stop caring so much. When it’s not necessary. You overthink. You hesitate. And that’s how things get worse.”

“I hesitate because—”

“Because you care, I know. But not everything needs that much care.”

He swallowed. The room felt smaller.

“I can’t kill him.”

Usagi frowned. “It’s not killing if it’s not a living thing.”

Arisu turned to her. 

“He’s here. He’s breathing.”

As if on cue, a faint sound drifted in from the living room—Chishiya’s voice, asking something about the Wi-Fi password.

Arisu’s chest tightened.

“Isn’t that enough?” 

Usagi didn’t answer right away.

She looked at him, really looked. Then she sighed again, softer this time.

“This is going to be complicated.”