The WHUMMMM that followed wasn't just a terrifying tear in the fabric of spacetime; it was the dreaded, familiar symphony of my own damnation, the roaring overture to my endless, self-inflicted torment. The world dissolved into a screaming vortex of light and sound, and then, just as violently, it snapped back into place. I reset again, back to 3:00 PM on the dot, that same miserable day. My hand, already moving before my brain had fully rebooted, reached for the phone on my desk. There was no fear in the gesture, not anymore. Fear was a luxury I couldn't afford, a resource I'd exhausted countless loops ago. Now, there was only a cold, terrifying, soul-crushing futility. My thumb hovered over the screen, the glowing letters a taunt. I tapped 'CONFIRM' again, the digital chime a wretched, familiar echo of my endless torment, but this time, a new, terrifying purpose burned behind my eyes. I would break this. I would break me. Whatever it took.
But that fragile, desperate purpose dissolved like sugar in acid, replaced by a hollow, sickening ache that coiled in the pit of my stomach as the world solidified around me. The scent of my room—stale air, old pizza boxes, and the faint, metallic tang of overheated electronics—filled my lungs, a scent I now associated with abject failure. I was back in my room, the digital clock on my monitor burning a hole in my retina: 3:00 PM. Another hour. Another chance to fail. Another chance to orchestrate the final, agonizing moments of her life. Another chance to watch her die.
My legs moved on their own, a phantom pull guiding me out of my chair and towards the bathroom down the hall. My body was a machine running on the ghost of a memory, a pre-programmed routine of despair. I needed to wash the taste of ash from my mouth, the phantom bitterness that coated my tongue after every reset, the residue of incinerated hope. I needed to splash water on a face I no longer recognized, a face that belonged to a boy playing God, and losing spectacularly. The fluorescent light in the bathroom hummed with a low, oppressive frequency, stark and unforgiving, as I leaned over the sink and stared into the mirror.
My reflection stared back, but it wasn't just me. It was… fractured. A flicker, a shudder, a grotesque ripple distorted the image as if I were looking at myself through a screen plagued by corrupted data. My messy black hair, a constant source of my mother's nagging, seemed to fray at the edges, dissolving into pixels. My tired eyes, ringed with the dark circles of a thousand sleepless nights, glitched with a burst of red and green static. And then, the mouth. A smile, too wide, too sharp, stretched across my reflected face—a rictus of pure malice. It was a reflection of myself, but alien, monstrous, something born from the toxic waste of my repeated failures.
"Look at you, Kaito," the warped reflection rasped, its voice a fractured echo of my own, but pitched down, layered with the grinding sound of digital corruption and laced with a venomous sneer. "Still playing the hero, huh? Still think you can win the unwinnable game?"
My breath hitched, catching in my throat like a shard of glass. My hands shot out, gripping the cold, smooth porcelain of the sink until my knuckles turned bone white. The pressure was the only thing grounding me, the only proof that the sink was real, that I was real. The tears were already stinging my eyes, hot and shameful, blurring the monstrous image that wore my face.
"Oh, you know me," Glitch-Shou chuckled, a sound like grinding gears and shattering data packets. It was the ugliest sound I had ever heard. "I'm the part you try to bury under all that witty sarcasm and feigned indifference. I'm the truth you can't escape. The real you." Its eyes, no longer my own weary brown but twin points of searing red light, drilled into mine, pinning me in place. "Let's play a game, shall we? A little Q&A. A performance review for the resident god. Just between us."
My jaw clenched so hard a sharp pain shot up into my temple. I said nothing. I couldn't. My shoulders began to tremble uncontrollably, a violent shudder that racked my entire frame. My head throbbed with a dull, punishing ache that mirrored the ceaseless, frantic pounding in my chest. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. The rhythm of my own pathetic, cornered heart.
"Do you really like her, Shou?" Glitch-Shou began, its voice dripping with a mocking, syrupy saccharine that made my skin crawl. "That sweet, cutesy Airi? The perfect, innocent girl?" It leaned closer, its distorted face filling the mirror. "Or is she just a trophy? The ultimate prize? A puzzle you, the 'dumb genius,' the great Kaito Shou, can't solve? Is that what this is? The one firewall you can't brute-force, the one system you can't crack?"
My vision blurred further, the hot tears finally spilling over, tracing paths through the grime on my cheeks. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block it out, but the voice wasn't just in the room anymore. It was inside my head, a corrosive acid eating away at my last shreds of sanity. I saw her then, the first time I ever really saw her. She was standing by the library window, sunlight turning her hair into a halo, a small, secret smile on her face as she read a book. She wasn't a puzzle. She was… peace. A quiet warmth in my chaotic world. No, I thought, a silent, desperate scream. That's not what she is. But the glitch just laughed.
"Do you really want to save her, then?" the voice hissed, relentless. "Or do you just want to prove you're not the useless, cowardly idiot you've always secretly thought you were? Remember that dog, Shou? The one by the river when you were eight? You watched those bullies kick it, and you hid behind a tree, too scared to even shout. You just stood there, crying, while it yelped. Is this about her? Or is this about finally, for once in your miserable life, not being the boy hiding behind the tree?"
Each question was a hammer blow, each word a precisely aimed strike, driving me deeper into the abyss of my own self-loathing. I wanted to scream, to roar, to shatter the mirror and the monster within it, but my voice was trapped somewhere behind the thick, impassable lump in my throat. My lungs felt like they were filling with cement.
"Do you actually care about anyone but yourself, Kaito?" The question was softer now, more insidious. "Tanaka? Your family? Or are they just side characters in your grand, tragic play? Background props to make your struggle seem more noble? You rewind time, and their entire day, their thoughts, their feelings—poof—gone. Erased. All because you couldn't get what you wanted. Do you ever think about that? The sheer, breathtaking arrogance of it?"
The words echoed in the cavern of my skull, twisting the knife already plunged deep into my gut. He was right. I was a monster. My chest felt tight, constricted by an iron band that was squeezing the very life out of me. I was nothing but an architect of death, a grotesque puppet master of pain, orchestrating tragedies for everyone—everyone—except the one person I swore to save. And even then, she still died. Every single time. Nothing about me had changed, had it? I was still that useless, cowardly, arrogant fool who hid behind a keyboard and pretended it made him powerful. I was such a hopeless, little, useless idiot…
"Do you believe you deserve happiness after all this?" Glitch-Shou whispered, its voice a conspiratorial poison in my ear. "After all the deaths? The endless sea of lies you swim in? You lie to Tanaka every day. You lie to your parents with every forced smile. You lie to her with your very presence. You are a walking, breathing fraud. And frauds don't get happy endings."
A choked, pathetic whimper escaped me, the sound of a dying animal. I pressed my forehead against the cold, unyielding surface of the mirror, the chill of it a faint shock against my burning skin. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted the ghastly reflection to disappear. My body was shaking so violently now that the entire room seemed to vibrate in sympathy, the humming of the light growing louder, more frantic.
"Ah, Airi," Glitch-Shou purred, its form flickering violently, threatening to fragment completely. The red light of its eyes intensified. "Do you truly understand what you're doing to her? Dying over and over and over, just for your selfish desire to 'save' her? Can you even imagine the terror? The confusion? The pain? You're not saving her from one death, Shou. You're condemning her to an eternity of them. You're her personal, private hell."
The air was suffocating, thick and heavy with the stench of my failure. My throat burned, raw and scraped. Every breath was a struggle, a gasp that brought no relief, only more of the sterile, cold air that felt as empty as I did.
"Do you think this is love, or just obsession, Shou?" the monster in the mirror asked, its voice almost gentle now, the final, killing blow delivered with a surgeon's precision. "A desperate, pathetic attempt to cling to the one thing that makes you feel… important?"
Important. The word twisted in my gut like a serrated blade. My genius, once the source of my arrogant, mischievous pride, the thing that set me apart, now felt like the blackest, most agonizing curse. My hacking skills, the very keys that had unlocked this infernal nightmare, tasted like ash, like the bitter residue of a thousand incinerated hopes. I had laughed, I had schemed, I had abused this god-like power for petty gains—changing test scores, trolling Taka, winning stupid online arguments. Then I'd used it for what I selfishly, arrogantly, called love. And look where it got me. Look what it made me.
"Do you remember why you started this?" the glitch pressed on, sensing its victory. "Was it truly for her, or was it because you could? Because you, the great hacker Shou Kaito, couldn't stand the existence of a problem you couldn't solve? Couldn't stand not having control?"
I felt myself unraveling, shredding into tiny, meaningless pieces. Every nerve ending screamed in protest. My mind was a chaotic storm of code and sorrow, on the precipice of a full, complete, system breakdown. The blue screen of death for the soul.
"Do you think anyone else would understand this? This endless, futile loop? They'd call you insane. A monster. A psychopath who holds the lives of his friends in his hands and juggles them for his own ego. And you know what, Shou?" The reflection grinned, a nightmare of sharp teeth. "They'd be right."
"Do you think you can change, Shou?" the glitch hissed, its voice echoing with a terrible finality, the question hanging in the dead air of the bathroom. "Or… is this just another one of your grand, arrogant schemes to prove you're not useless? Is it about her living, or is it about you saving her? Be honest. Just this once. Is this about Airi, or is it just about absolving yourself of the pathetic, cowardly idiot you actually are?"
"SHUT UP!!!" The scream ripped from my throat, raw and ragged and bloody, a sound I didn't recognize as my own. My head snapped up, my eyes bloodshot and wild, glaring at the monstrous reflection that laughed silently back at me. "Just... SHUT UP!"
My gaze, frantic and searching for an escape, an answer, anything, snapped to the small, dull razor sitting on the edge of the sink. An old-fashioned safety razor my dad had left here months ago, a forgotten tool from a happier, simpler time. My fingers trembled as I reached for it, the cool, solid weight of the metal a stark, shocking contrast to the burning shame consuming me from the inside out. This was it. An endpoint. The only way to stop the loops. The only way to stop the suffering. To stop me.
My hand trembled, the tremor escalating into a violent shake as I lifted the razor, its single, sharp edge catching the harsh, unforgiving fluorescent light. A thin, perfect line of bright red began to bead on the pale skin of my wrist as the cold steel pressed against my flesh. It didn't even hurt. It was just… cold. I couldn't stop the flood of memories, not anymore. They poured in, a torrent overwhelming the dam of my denial, each one a sharp, agonizing stab to my already shattered heart.
"Tanaka," I rasped, the blade shaking violently in my grasp, my voice a shredded whisper. "I'm sorry I let you smell like a locker room for a whole week, you know?" A wet, broken laugh escaped me. "Remember that time in middle school, you read that insane online article about how deodorant causes… I don't know, spontaneous combustion or something? You were so proud of your 'natural scent,' even when you were practically radioactive. The whole classroom smelled like onions and despair. The teachers threatened to quarantine you, and everyone avoided you like you were the source of a new plague. But I still sat next to you at lunch. I called you 'Stink-boy' for a month straight, and I definitely made fun of you more than anyone else, but I remember how relieved you looked when I just plopped my tray down and acted like nothing was wrong. You just laughed, that weird, snorting laugh of yours that sounds like a pig getting electrocuted. You were so stubbornly, perfectly you. I never got to tell you how much I actually liked that about you. I'm sorry I dragged you into this. I'm sorry I was a terrible best friend who couldn't protect you." A fat tear plopped onto the metal of the razor, shimmering for a moment before mixing with the growing bead of red.
"Mom, Dad, Sis..." My voice hitched, strangled by a sob that felt like it was being torn from my very soul. The razor dug a little deeper, the line widening. "Mom, you always, always leave a small packet of those weird, chalky, grape-flavored candies on my desk when you know I'm pulling an all-nighter. You pretend you don't notice I'm still awake, hacking away at some pointless project, but they're always there in the morning, right next to my tower of empty energy drink cans. A silent offering. And Dad… you never say much. You don't get what I do. But you always, always put a hand on my shoulder, firm and solid and warm, when you see me struggling with something. You don't offer advice; you just… squeeze. Like you could absorb some of the weight, no questions asked. You just knew. And Sis… you're always, always stealing my favorite hoodies, stretching them out, leaving them smelling like your perfume. But you're also the only one who actually laughs at my dumb jokes when no one else does. You're the only one who truly gets my stupid memes, and you'd send me back even dumber ones at two in the morning. I never told you how much I loved that. I'm so sorry I was such a pain in the ass. Sorry I didn't tell you I loved you enough. Sorry for everything."
Airi. Her face, vivid and heartbreakingly real, filled my mind's eye, eclipsing the grotesque mockery in the mirror. Her soft features, the gentle way she hummed off-key when she was happy, a little secret tune only she knew, a melody that always made me smile even when I pretended to be annoyed. The subtle, sweet scent of cherry blossoms that always seemed to cling to her clothes and hair, a ghost of spring that could cut through the stale air of a crowded school hallway, a scent that still haunted my dreams, pulling me back to moments of impossible lightness. The nervous, endearing way she'd tuck a stray strand of long hair behind her ear when she was deep in thought, a habit I'd learned to adore, because it meant she was focused on something pure, something innocent. The way her eyes would crinkle at the corners when she giggled, a pure, infectious sound that felt like sunshine. The dream, the one I kept having between loops, of the fields of cherry blossoms, where we just were, bathed in warm light and profound peace, her hand in mine, no fear, no death, no resets, just... us. I just wanted that to be real. Just once.
"I'm sorry, Airi," I whispered, the words a raw, broken plea to the universe, the red line on my wrist now a clear, stark mark against my skin. "I failed you. I failed everyone. I just… I just want you to live. Even if it means I can't."
I closed my eyes, took a ragged breath, and pressed down.
Just as the pressure began to deepen into a sharp, biting pain, a warmth spread across my shoulders. A soft, gentle weight settled there, impossible, yet utterly, undeniably real. It wasn't the cold of the porcelain or the mirror. It was a living heat that seeped through my thin shirt and into my very bones. My eyes, swimming with tears, snapped open, back to the mirror.
The glitch was gone. The static, the red eyes, the monstrous grin—all of it had vanished. In its place, standing behind my own wrecked reflection, was a figure so familiar, so painfully beautiful, that my heart seized in my chest, a stuttering, agonizing beat. Airi.
She was smiling, her eyes bright and clear, not a hint of static or distortion. She looked exactly as she did in my most cherished memories, her long hair soft around her shoulders, her presence a beacon of impossible light in the dim, cold, sterile bathroom. Her hands, impossibly, were resting on my shoulders, their warmth the source of the heat I felt.
"Shou," her voice was a soft, melodic whisper, like the rustle of cherry blossoms in a gentle breeze. It wasn't an echo or a memory. It was her. It was the sound I had been dying, over and over and over again, to hear. "It's not your fault, Shou."
My arm fell limp at my side, my fingers going slack. The razor clattered to the ceramic sink with a dull, tinny clink, the sound swallowed by the sudden, profound silence.
"You did your best," she continued, her smile widening, radiating a warmth that pushed back the shadows in the room and in my mind. "You tried so hard. I know you did. You're not a monster." Her reflection's eyes met mine, and they were filled with a kindness so pure it was unbearable. "You're... you're my Shou. And I love you for it. For trying. For everything."
Tears, no longer of despair and self-hatred but of a profound, aching relief, streamed down my face in silent, hot rivers. Her image in the mirror seemed to glow, to emanate a soft, gentle light, her eyes holding mine, a lifeline in the storm.
"It's okay, Shou," she murmured, and in the mirror, I saw her spectral thumbs begin to gently stroke my shoulders through the glass. "It's okay to be tired. It's okay to let go of this burden. You're not alone. I'm here with you."
Her smile was everything. It was the sun after a long winter, the stars in a moonless sky, the endless, peaceful fields of cherry blossoms from my dreams made real. It was the promise of a peace I thought I had forever lost, a forgiveness I was certain I could never deserve. And for the first time in what felt like a thousand lifetimes, I believed her. I dropped the sharp object entirely from the edge of the sink, and it fell to the floor, the sound swallowed by the suffocating silence, broken only by the ragged, shuddering sound of my own breath, finally, finally, drawing in.