This is an idea I came up with from... pretty much out of nowhere. I'm personally somewhat satisfied with how this first piece turned out. At least, I can't find anything I'd like to improve on it, or to cut out, so that's a good sign, right? Yeah, probably. Anyway, have a peek at it, and let me know what you think.
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=======Prologue=======
"Endless Eight?"
A light breeze causes the naked branches overhead to rattle like wooden windchimes. This is a popular retreat for couples in the summer. The deciduous trees provide a beautiful green canopy, far out of sight of teachers and fellow students. But now, in late winter, it feels like I'm standing under a pile of kindling.
Somewhere, hidden in the back of my mind, in a cage built to isolate my two minds, I let out a silent, tired sigh. How many times now have I found myself in this exact place, at this exact same time? Thousands of times? Millions? Or am I still working on six digits? I don't know. I lost track after falling off the school roof for the thousandth time.
"Hi... Hisao? You came?"
Ah, yes. Iwanako. At some point, already having lost count, I started to resent her calling me out here. I resented her for asking me out, something that's supposed to be a most joyous event for any high school boy. An event that gave me a heart attack. See? There I go again, crumpling in on myself, everything fading to black once more. And again, Iwanako's voice mixed with the clatter of branches above are the last sounds to linger in my ears.
The resentment didn't last. It couldn't last, just like every other emotion I ever felt. Some people say that mad grief is the worst state of mind for a human being. I know those people to be wrong now.
The worst state of mind for a human being... is numbness. A heart devoid of emotion. A mind lost to endless repetitions of the same events. Okay, not quite lost. I'm still here, in the back of my own skull, observing. Watching the same four months and one week transpire anew.
Of course, the me that's at the forefront, the me who is actually living through this, believes this is all happening for the first time. And somehow, it is the first time. For him, that is. Every time I start back in that secluded grove behind my old high school, the me that's experiencing everything has no recollection of what already happened thousands of times.
I don't know why I exist like this now, separated into two minds. I don't know how I started to remember everything. But I do. I remember every single detail of my stay in the hospital. I know everything that happens during that first week at Yamaku. And I know, no matter how the week ends, I will always be returning to that quiet, snow-covered grove, where Iwanako asks me out, and I have my first heart attack.
I say first, but again, I lost track after spending the festival day with Shizune and Misha for the 2000th time. I don't know how many heart attacks my body has suffered through by now, but it's been far too many for any heart to sustain.
So how come I keep returning? Why does everything start again with that heart attack in the snow, after only a single week at Yamaku? And why, why does the week end in six different ways? Always the same six ways? I used to wish I knew. I used to wish for this to end, for time to move on past the festival.
I stopped wishing somewhere along the way, too.
It's that day again. The doctor and my parents enter my hospital room, trying to hide their slight nervousness. The forefront doesn't notice they're nervous, though. He never does. The doctor again starts with saying my heart is strong enough now. Well, Emi will prove him wrong soon enough.
It's actually a good thing I can hide like this, as a separate entity. It keeps the emotions that this Hisao experiences real. I tried changing things a few times by giving zero response at everything the doctor and my parents tell me. It never works. Trying to end my life while in the hospital never works either. Of course nothing works. I always go to Yamaku.
This isn't an opportunity, don't call it an opportunity. Don't call it a goddamned opportunity.
This me, the observer, knows better of course. Yamaku is the best thing that happened to me. Hell, if I don't have that manly picknick with Kenji this time around, I could even end up falling for one of the five girls I might end the week with. I loved each and every one of them for a long while when the memories started to pile up. And with every repetition, that love grew stronger.
Except that I'm always stuck in the same four months and one week. And even love faded away from the numbness that is now my heart.
This is my life now. I would be a medical miracle if all the time I've accumulated would physically express itself. But of course it doesn't. It's like someone or something created a "save" point, like in a game, on the day of Iwanako's confession, and resets the "game" after the festival. Start game, get a heart attack. Spend four months in the hospital. Spend one week at Yamaku. Then the end credits roll, and I'm back in that snowy grove for another "playthrough".
Every playthrough is the same. The only things that ever change are how sunday is reached, and even those changes are the same. Throughout it all, here I sit in my little cage, quietly in the back of my skull. A quiet observer. Or maybe I'm a narrator now. I don't know. There is nothing left of Hisao Nakai in here. Not in this quiet part. Hisao Nakai is the one who still experiences emotions, the one at the forefront, isolated from this numb, tired, uncaring mind.
Monday comes once more. The week at Yamaku begins. The same week, with the same people, who say the same things. A week in which the same events transpire once more. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.
Hisao Nakai enters the school grounds of Yamaku High, blissfully unaware of having done the same thousands upon thousands of times before.
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Why, yes, that chapter name is a blatant Haruhi reference
Don't worry, it's the only one I made on purpose (so far)
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