Chapter Text
A cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal radiation monitor such as a Geiger counter detects radioactivity, like a single atom decaying, the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, which kills the cat in an hour. If no decaying atom triggers the monitor, the cat remains alive. Until you open the box — you won't know for sure.
But if you said the cat is alive, you'd be upset to learn that it is, in fact, dead. But if your guess is that the cat is dead, but it is, in fact, alive? Would you be upset that you didn't guess correctly, or would you be happy, that you didn't kill a living creature?
Kanrai was never a fan of experiments and research and such, it just wasn't how he did things and was never something he cared about. But it was, it seems, the biggest passion of at least half of the people he knew and gave a damn to remember the names of. And there were not many people he actually "cared" about enough. His family, his friend, that friend's family and his secretary — a small list of contacts in his phone, though he actually called only two of them, if they were (un)lucky enough. The rest either didn't pick up or were dead. It was probably a sad thing that you can't get a call from the other side. Wouldn't it be wonderful to hear the dead people's voices? Oh, so wonderful. If Kanrai cared enough to grieve, that is. Even when thinking about his dead best friend he wasn't missing him, he was just disappointed.
Kanrai's business was getting people under his control. Break them just to reshape them into what he needed. Break each plate and assemble a beautiful piece of art from the fragments, much more useless than a plate, but more pleasing to the eye. Break every person and assemble their personality the way he needed. Make them less humane, even less than before, but more obedient to keep around. Like his father tought him, back when Kanrai didn't understand what was his purpose in life. Old man always wanted to get his own ideology in his son's head, the one the Ushirono family seemed to follow from generation to generation. Would his father be disappointed in Kanrai if he saw that he wasn't able to teach his son the same ideas? He probably would, but he wasn't that important in Kanrai's life for him to care. His father wasn't that proud of him anyway.
But Maeno Risshun was important enough.
For the first fifteen years of knowing each other Risshun completely ignored Kanrai's existence. But Kanrai's life revolved around Risshun since the day they first met. He remembered his routine, but it's not like it was that hard anyway. Risshun got out only to get to school, and after that he went to the park to read till late noon, and then he always went straight home. The same on the weekend and holidays, except with no school. Changing his own daily routine just to see him wasn't that hard — after school, club activities waited for him, and then just ask Shigure to drive him to the park where he could sit with Risshun till late noon. And then drive home. To be honest, Kanrai didn't know at what time exactly Risshun went home — maybe he stayed till night. He would never be able to know anyway, father always was strict and waited for him at the specified time, and if Shigure got him home just a bit too late, they both received the punishment. Kanrai got it for disobeying his father. Shigure got it for not doing his responsibilities.
Maeno Risshun — a box with a surprise. Maeno Risshun — an empty mailbox. Maeno Risshun — a treasure chest. Maeno Risshun — a steel safe with a Schrödinger's cat. Dead and alive and empty and full, all at the same time. Interesting and alluring. Boring and repulsive. Unless he opens up his soul, unless he breaks his skull — he'll never know what kind of a person Risshun actually is. And Kanrai don't actually need the answer, because it may be disappointing to him. To live in ignorance of the answer to the main riddle of his life — this is the path that Ushirono Kanrai chose for himself, all that just not to lose almost the last thing that interests him. If something was actually interesting to him, he wanted to never learn anything about it. As soon as he understands something, it becomes boring to him. Useless. There was no reason to keep it in his life anymore. Kanrai knew almost everything about Risshun and yet there were things he didn't get the answers for. Like when he finished reading and went home. And that was enough.
Kanrai wasn't afraid of anything, but, maybe, he was always nervous about the fact that life could become boring again.
He didn't really care about helper-secretary-slave that his father punished alongside him for getting home late. He was just another secondary character in his life, maybe just a bit more important, but only because he could be useful sometimes. For example, covered for him in moments like this, saying that there was a lot of traffic or his teacher talked to him after class. Still, this wasn't enough to help with the boredom he felt his whole life. But Risshun was enough. Which was funny, considering that Maeno didn't even do anything at all. He was more boring than a hamster in a wheel. At least a hamster could run and fall comically, while Risshun sat completely motionless, emotionless, not moving a single muscle.
Kanrai always saw the world as boring. People were nothing more than a bunch of background characters. He could just reply the same, go by the same route, like in some cheap visual novel. The one where you just know which replies lead to the good ending, and which ones will make you fail. He was good at keeping the act of an ideal person, ideal student and ideal son, he was the love interest for every third girl his age and every second girl in elementary. But all of this was still not enough to help with the boredom.
All of this was not enough for "it". "It" wanted more chaos in Kanrai's life, more reactions, something more interesting. Destroy everything that's not giving him what he needed. "It" was a baby in a cradle that needs to be rocked all the time so that it does not begin to cry, but sometimes needed you to stop so that it doesn't fall asleep forever.
"It" was something Kanrai didn't understand, but the lack of knowledge helped it stay interesting to Kanrai. Something interesting besides Risshun. Something that he was able to tame, to make a cradle for it, just to increase the difficulty of this game called life and find at least something amusing for him. Something stable in his life except boring dialogues with NPCs. At first it was only a small entertainment, but then it helped when he had no way to be near Risshun. That's just how Kanrai was — he didn't want to kill or leave things he found interesting alive. He just wanted to be with them — sit beside Risshun in the park, not touching him, not talking, sit there in his thoughts where he rocked and held the "baby". Be there, not destroying, not rebuilding anything dear to him.
"It" were impulses somewhere in the depths of his consciousness. Painful, sometimes to the point of trembling in his hands, which were difficult to restrain for the first few years of his life, which he did not understand at all as a child and even disliked. Father never talked about "it" and now Kanrai thinks that he just didn't know what it was. Ushirono Daikan didn't know but still had to hold "it" inside himself the same way his son did. Probably. It made sense.
Realization that they were similar helped. Nothing could scare him and make him want to bow down or whatever other people did when they saw past prime-minister in front of them. Neither his father's stern gaze nor his appearance frightened him anymore. It helped to put him on the same level with everyone else, with all the other background characters in his life, to memorize the dialogue with him and don’t think about the semantic load it carries.
"I'm listening, father". "Yes, father". "Of course, father".
The illusion of choice in a mental dialogue box that led to the same thing every time.
The Ushironos were similar, but the father and the son were different in one small detail — even though they both didn't know what "it" was, Daikan knew why it existed. Kanrai didn't seem to understand that either.
"It" was part of Kanrai, but seemed to live the life of it own sometimes. It asked for attention, asked for something more interesting, got upset when something they both disliked happened. Each time, Kanrai felt more and more like "it" was his inner child. Capricious, unsatisfied with everything, wanting only to have fun from early morning until late night. That's how it seemed until Kanrai began to discern the desire to kill in these painful impulses and whims.
If something "it" and Kanrai disliked happened, his hand began to tremble from wanting to strangle someone and from trying to restrain himself from doing so.
And there were a lot of things. For example, when his classmates — well, after graduating, ex classmates — talked about Risshun and how similar to a machine he was. A robot that was able to do only what it's code told it to do. A background character with a poorly written script. Doing the same thing everyday, not answering any questions from other NPCs that surrounded Kanrai. Not answering Kanrai's questions either, simply because they went into one ear and went out of the other. But he never needed any reaction. A reaction would open the box. Ushirono's hands began to tremble when he thought about how the box is going to be empty, which is why he preffered the lack of reaction and obscurity. When other people called Risshun empty, he felt sick from thinking that they could be right. He wished to never hear those words again.
Kanrai didn't need any reaction, but "it" wanted it. He was hoping that Risshun wouldn't even go to the park today when "it" made him run to that bench. Run until muscles burned like fire. Run until the taste of blood in his mouth became so strong that a part of him wished it wasn't his own blood, but someone else's. Notice Risshun and call out for him. Notice his eyebrow twitch. Feel he fear that the box was about to open, feel the need to just kill him right there, to hit him to death with the corner of a thick medical book he always loved to read, to watch as blood spattered onto the green grass, as his white shirt, with incorrectly fastened buttons, got red and dirty.
Every time Kanrai called out the name "Risshun" he prayed to all the Gods he didn't believe in that he won't reply. He couldn't believe in Gods when father kept telling him that the Ushironos had to become Gods. That they are the real rulers. They're in charge of this entire world, the world just doesn’t know it yet.
Risshun never reacted to breathless Kanrai in front of him, letting him just fall onto the bench and look up at the sky, where the noon was just about to change into the night.
The first person Risshun acknowledged wasn't Kanrai at all.
The first one was Shuurei. Kanrai would never remember her maiden name, so in his mind, just like on a gravestone, she's forever "Maeno Shuurei". She and Kanrai agreed that Risshun was the most interesting thing in the world, but while Ushirono was content to look at this mystery from afar, Shuurei was not satisfied with only that. She tried her best to get his attention until she finally found the best way to do so — take his book from him and wait until the gears in Risshun's brain turn to form a thought and make him go "oh", not changing his expression but looking up at her. The jerk who always wins first place in sporting events, has memorized all her biology textbooks, and gets all her grades straight A's by some miracle. The one always dreamed of connecting her life with medicine, an ideal pair for Risshun, who is very calm, but just as smart if not more, the one who dreamed of the same thing. They had the same dreams and they both did everything to make them real — it would be weird if they didn't got together — that what Kanrai thought while accidentally breaking his pencil in his hand, lost in thought, staring at how Shuurei fluttered around Rishshun like a butterfly around a flower.
Catch the butterfly, dry its corpse, and pin it in the most inconspicuous in his collection. And keep on watering the flower after hiding it under a jar so that no other dirty insect would disturb it again.
When Kanrai calmed "it" inside of him after "it" got jealous, he was almost grateful for Shuurei since she was able to get Risshun to see farther than his books. If it weren't for her, he would probably never notice Kanrai who was always hanging around. Shuurei won by being the first one Risshun noticed, but Kanrai won by being his first actual friend.
Risshun started to react to Kanrai and "it" began to babble happily inside every time. Happy nonsense mixed with Kanrai's own feelings and "it" became more difficult to control. The closer Risshun got to Kanrai, the sicker he felt from thinking that the box would open and turn out to be empty. And then the game would be over. "It" was upset when he didn't spend time with Risshun, because everytime he let Kanrai to have a conversation with him, "it" thought it was the perfect opportunity to break his skull open. "It" wanted to open Risshun in the literal sense, to look at his insides, at his beating heart and working organs. Kanrai didn't want to open Risshun in a metaphorical sense — he didn't want to know him close enough to be able to predict what he thinks about or what he's going to do next. The feelings got mixed, entangled with each other, Kanrai's own feelings and "it"'s feelings became the same and he didn't know in what sense he wanted to keep the box shut and in what sense he wanted to keep it closed.
When "it" took control over Kanrai for the first time, it was because Shuurei asked Risshun out. When they happily told about it Kanrai, he was ready to imagine a dialogue box with answers. "Oh, I'm so happy for you!" or "I knew it would end like this" — that what he'd say if he had the choice to. But he couldn't say anything. Before he realized it, someone was already pulling him away from Shuurei, who was sitting on the ground and holding her hand to her face. He didn't remember who was holding him behind — was it Risshun, passers-by, police officers or medics who someone called for. Blood — that what Kanrai remembers. Blood on Shuurei's face and on his own hands. He remembers his broken glasses. Messy hair on both of their heads. Their clothes covered in dust and dirt. In that moment, everything narrowed down to him and Shuurei.
He remembers the disappointment in his father's eyes when he had to come there. Sitting in front of the doctors, he couldn't help but recall the most interesting conversation they'd had. The only one he didn't expect.
"Will is the weakest, most meaningless, and most useless part of human being. Deprive everyone of their will, use them."
That what he said back then. Kanrai didn't understand him back then but today he was finally able to realize how he could use "it". The reason it was in his blood. The reason why he needed to learn to control "it". It all finally made sense in Kanrai's head and he finally realized what his purpose was as a part of Ushirono's family.
Will is the ability to fulfill one's desires. "It" was made to teach him to be above his desires. To throw away everything he had, to have more than he ever had. Deprive everyone of their will. It was something that intrigued him from the start, but only now was he old enough to find it actually interesting. He became just like the weird old man that wanted to put this idea in his head almost since the day he was born.
The day Shuurei and Risshun started dating was the first and last day Kanrai let "it" take control over him.
"Shun said you were sick with something," Shuurei explained Kanrai's actions to herself, picking at the tasteless mess they gave to patients. "I can't be mad at you because I know you wouldn't be mad at me."
Kanrai doesn't reply, just nod. He would definitely be mad at Shuurei if she started a fight with him. That's why he was surprised at her actions for the first time.
That one conversation wasn't enough to interest him, but it was amusing for the time being while he had nothing else to do.
It turned out "it" was a genetic illness. Kanrai couldn't understand why father didn't tell him sooner. Maybe not to show all the tricks up his sleeve. If Kanrai knew he was sick, what would change? A lot of things, probably, he thinks. A lot of things. And at the same time, nothing. Maybe he didn't knew the right answer because it was another riddle. It wasn't interesting to him.
A poorly researched disease, but one that still has a name. "ZENO". What nonsense. Calling it a "baby" was better. It was more like a bratty child than a disease.
Risshun already told Shuurei even though Kanrai didn't plan to tell her about it. It was a secret for him and Maeno only, but he decided otherwise. Is that what people in relationships do? Trust each other and tell all the secrets? Ushirono thought about learning more about this phenomenon of relationships. When he graduates, he'll have to choose a wife, and if he wanted to be a good husband in the public eyes', he had to pretend to be head over heels in love. That thought alone made him feel weird, so he made a promise to himself that the first day they meet, he'll his future wife that he will never love her. Kanrai didn't want to lie to her. Husband and wife with no trust for each other — the first step to a divorce, right?
It was even easier that he thought. Ushirono Ritsuka made him feel nothing when they first met. She was the best choice for continuing the Ushirono family line, but nothing more. And it seemed that she didn't mind that fate. And even if she did, Kanrai didn't pay much attention to that. And he never will. Ritsuka was an instrument and she chose that fate for herself. Ritsuka was the first person, whose will Kanrai took away.
"I'm not going to love you."
Shuurei and Risshun's marriage made Kanrai feel more emotions than his own.
ZENO and Risshun were the only things that Kanrai found interesting. And he wasn't afraid of anything, but his hand trembled at the thought that life could become boring again.