Taro Hanazawa; A3. We Won't Need Legs To Stand
((PC control approved by everyone included in flashbacks and such, so no worries there. ENJOY.))
The first thing he heard was her gun clattering to the floor. And it almost seemed like the last thing. It was suddenly silent and Taro cleared his throat just so he could hear something. He looked around afterwards, imagining that he was the last one left even though he definitely wasn’t.
He hiccoughed.
Then he saw Miki on the floor, faced down in the mud, her head a gooey mess. Taro thought he could see bits of brain.
He supposed a corpse shouldn’t be surprising to him anymore, but he threw up anyway.
She was definitely dead. Taro didn’t need to shoot her again, or wait for her to get back up; he just had to move on.
He couldn’t believe that he was alive, he almost didn’t, thinking that maybe he was dead, until he remembered how stupid that sounded. He’d beaten Miki, just like Eizo-the scene around him was proof of that, their bodies only a few metres apart. Eizo’s was drifting further and further away, bobbing along. It-not him-might end up under the waterfall.
The machine gun was near Miki. The idea of having a machine gun three days ago would’ve been a lot more comforting to him than it was now, back when there were more people against him, more people with him. Back when he had friends, and maybe if he’d gotten something better than whatever the hell he got, he could’ve protected them.
Maybe things would be different.
They probably wouldn’t, but maybe. Maybe he’d have died in an epic gunfight trying to protect his friends.
At least he would’ve died a hero, remembered for doing something worthwhile.
Remembered for a pointless sacrifice, because the people he tried to save would probably die anyway.
Now the machine gun did nothing to soothe him, or make him feel better or anything. He knew who was alive; he didn’t want to use that on her. Emi wouldn’t have let some nice girl beat her. She was definitely still around.
He couldn’t pretend she wasn’t.
And then something happened that destroyed him. It made him want to cry because it just wasn’t right.
He saw her walking towards him.
Emi.
Emi was alive and he was alive.
They were definitely the last two standing.
“Taro-”
He saw her face-burnt, ghastly, disgusting, completely and utterly ruined. What the hell happened to her? He moved back, mostly because of her face, but also because he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to see her, or to talk to her.
And he wasn’t ready to kill her.
“I killed Keisuke!” Emi screamed it at him, like she was begging for forgiveness.
That was when Taro moved forward, just staring at her, letting her continue the tirade, recalling the people she killed, telling him that she killed her goddamn boyfriend.
Taro let her finish, because he thought she needed to do it, then he crouched down in front of her, hearing nothing but her shaken sobs. He sat down on the rocks, almost falling from exhaustion.
And then he reached his arms around her - for her, but for him, too - it was a guilty need to feel someone, to have them brace up against him and breathe into him. She didn’t stop him, she just fell into him, pressing her face against his shirt.
He needed it more than anything.
Emi carried on, Taro pulled her into him harder, resting into her hair. “I killed all of them. Tatsutarou was… He was an accident. Keisuke too. But… I thought that-that if someone could go home, it would be okay. That’s all I could do.”
Taro knew he couldn’t do anything-did she want him to do anything? He couldn’t take away the pain or the guilt she was feeling - she’d killed Keisuke, her boyfriend, her best friend, the guy she’d known almost forever - no matter how much he wanted to. And he really wanted to.
So he stayed quiet, embracing her, letting her sobs surround him, trying to feel what she was feeling but failing, knowing it wasn’t even possible. Killing Kouji or Kiku wasn’t the same-they weren’t lovers, or even best friends. And he hadn’t even known them for more than a few years.
Kouji was nothing to him; he had a hard time remembering why he even did what he did. In the end, neither of them really felt anything for the other.
Then there was Kiku, a fling-a stupid mistake, a gross night he hardly even remembered. The whole thing was crap. Meeting up with her was crap, killing her was even worse. It was an accident, but in the end… there was no baby. And that was a good thing, because it would’ve probably died anyway.
Who ever heard of a baby in the Program?
She told him that she wanted Daisuke to look after it-
Nothing like that mattered anymore, because they were dead. Everyone but the two of them.
The two of them.
“What do we do now?” Emi finally spoke up, the shake in her voice still rooted firmly in there. She looked up at him, for a moment, and he saw her face again.
He could see Emi’s eyes, ignoring the burns and the cracked skin, and they were frightened. Maybe she was more scared than him.
“I don’t know,” Taro said, plain and simple, because he really didn’t know, and he never expected this to happen, for them to be the last two standing. He laughed, because he had to. It was hollow. Empty, devoid of anything other than sound. “I didn’t think this would happen…”
He didn’t want to let go of her, “Maybe… maybe we should just wait.”
“Okay.” Emi didn’t need to ask what he meant by ‘wait’.
After she said that, Taro couldn’t help but regret suggesting the idea of waiting to die. Forty-three people-no, forty-three kids-were dead, so what was the point of adding two more instead of one? He thought that someone should live, whoever it was, him or Emi, maybe it didn’t matter… but everyone dying was a waste.
It made the whole Program completely pointless.
“By the way, Emi-” Taro waited until she looked at him, he wanted to say it to her face, because that was the only way he could say it. He held her tighter. She didn’t smell like Emi anymore, just blood and sweat and maybe a little bit of dirt, but it didn’t matter to him. She was still Emi, and she was real and he could hold her. “… I don’t care that you killed anyone. It doesn’t matter.”
She didn’t say anything.
A lot of things didn’t matter anymore. He’d found that out himself.
“I…” And suddenly, Taro couldn’t bring himself to say what he did. Not to her.
Finally, after a long, drawn out pause, “I killed people too. And not just Miki…” Her body was still nearby-he caught a glimpse of it in the corner of his eye.
Emi didn’t ask ‘who?’, and Taro was glad, because he didn’t think he could tell her. He didn’t want to tell her. What would she think if he told her he killed a pregnant girl, and that she was in labour and she was having his kid? Emi would hate him.
He didn’t want this to end with them hating each other.
Taro wasn’t sure how much time had passed, or even how long they had left. It was probably less than an hour. He expected his collar-he’d almost forgotten about it until now-to start beeping any second now. And then it’d be over.
He just wanted all this to be over.
He almost didn’t care if he lived or died, he just wanted everything to end.
Just the world to end.
The two of them were sat together, side-by-side, just like old times. Taro had his arm around her; Emi had her head on his shoulder. If they were back home and doing this, Keisuke might see them and be jealous. But here it wasn’t about that, Taro just needed someone to be close to.
“You know…” Emi finally spoke up, Taro was happy she didn’t seem as scared as before. “If Keisuke saw this, he’d flip. He always did.”
Taro laughed, sounding more genuine and real than he had in the past few days. But it still wasn’t right. “He totally would.”
It seemed to ease the tension, because the two of them started to talk. Not about anything in particular-just things they remembered, stupid and pointless and fun things that back then, Taro didn’t think he’d recall just before he was about to die. But he was happy to talk about them, even though it made him wish even harder that this never happened.
If it hadn’t, they’d probably all be on the coach now, heading back home, tired, but enjoying it all the same. They might laugh about something totally hilarious that happened on the trip-it’d be something they remembered for a week or so, but then it’ll soon whittle away into nothingness, and they’d soon forget about it altogether.
Because it really wasn’t all that special.
Instead they were clinging on to their last moments, helpless, because there was nothing they could do about it. Not really.
Once they stopped talking, the dreaded silence set in, stretching forever. It wasn’t awkward, or really anything. It was just silence.
And it made him feel like he was about to die.
And he probably was.
Taro knew he wasn’t strong. He couldn’t just sit around and wait. He wanted to protect Emi, but he wanted to protect himself too.
He wasn’t sure which he wanted more.
But he knew it couldn’t end this way.
“-I don’t think I can do this,” Taro was trembling. He moved away from Emi, ashamed and appalled at himself, but mostly scared. They’re so close to dying-he wanted to tell himself he could handle it, he’d be telling himself he could, but he knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t just sit and wait for the end to come.
Emi was shaking, too. “What should we do?” her voice was as nervous and frightened as before.
There wasn’t a lot of time left. Hiroto was probably getting a sick kick out of watching this, hovering over the microphone, just waiting for one of them to flip. That’s what always happened.
It was him or her, Hanazawa or Sekiyama. Taro was okay with either. Well-no, he wasn’t okay with them at all, no matter what happened it’d blow, but at least him or his best friend would be able to live past high school, and maybe do something great. Just like everyone’s supposed to.
You’re not supposed to die before your life has even begun, not when you’re seventeen.
“Maybe we should just go,” Taro didn’t want to ask her head on, but when he looked at her it was obvious she knew what he meant. He had to turn away.
He hated himself.
“Okay,” Emi said again.
He hated himself so goddamn much.
Taro hoped she wasn’t looking when he picked up the machine gun; it was only a few inches away from Miki’s body, and he was glad he didn’t have to pry it out of her hands. He didn’t bother picking up his bag. He didn’t need it anymore.
This was the end.
They both looked at each other, Taro tried to smile, but he just cried instead, stingy and hot. In less than five minutes one of them would be dead.
Before he could stop himself - he knew it would hurt afterwards, but he did it anyway - Taro hugged Emi. He pressed into her, crying into her hair. He didn’t want to let go. He wanted this to last forever.
“… I’m sorry,” he muffled into her hair. Taro didn’t know why it had to happen this way.
That was all he could say to her. It wasn’t enough.
It’d never be enough.
Why did it have to be the two of them?
He finally pulled away from her. They said they’d be friends forever-it was the bullshit you tell your friends at school, but it’s never really true. They’d part ways after high school, and maybe they’d see each other ten years later, share a few words, and part again. Forever.
But Taro had always believed it.
The two of them started walking away the opposite way.
“We’re still friends, right?” Taro was crying harder than ever, but he couldn’t look back. Not yet.
“When did we say we weren’t?” Emi was crying too.
Nothing was ever enough.
((FINAL FTD, GUYS. Wait for a mod to open a vote, y'know the drill. Good luck, Zarrah. ♥ This version has been a blast. :3))
The first thing he heard was her gun clattering to the floor. And it almost seemed like the last thing. It was suddenly silent and Taro cleared his throat just so he could hear something. He looked around afterwards, imagining that he was the last one left even though he definitely wasn’t.
He hiccoughed.
Then he saw Miki on the floor, faced down in the mud, her head a gooey mess. Taro thought he could see bits of brain.
He supposed a corpse shouldn’t be surprising to him anymore, but he threw up anyway.
She was definitely dead. Taro didn’t need to shoot her again, or wait for her to get back up; he just had to move on.
He couldn’t believe that he was alive, he almost didn’t, thinking that maybe he was dead, until he remembered how stupid that sounded. He’d beaten Miki, just like Eizo-the scene around him was proof of that, their bodies only a few metres apart. Eizo’s was drifting further and further away, bobbing along. It-not him-might end up under the waterfall.
The machine gun was near Miki. The idea of having a machine gun three days ago would’ve been a lot more comforting to him than it was now, back when there were more people against him, more people with him. Back when he had friends, and maybe if he’d gotten something better than whatever the hell he got, he could’ve protected them.
Maybe things would be different.
They probably wouldn’t, but maybe. Maybe he’d have died in an epic gunfight trying to protect his friends.
At least he would’ve died a hero, remembered for doing something worthwhile.
Remembered for a pointless sacrifice, because the people he tried to save would probably die anyway.
- “I’ll see you guys later,” Haruki gave a half wave to the four of them. Keitaro and Kyoko, stood together at the lockers, smiled and nodded to them too.
Haruki turned around, “Oh, yeah, Taro. I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”
“Sure,” Taro nodded. Haruki quickly joined up with Keitaro and Kyoko and left, offering another half wave as he disappeared around the corner.
When they’d gone, Emi looked up from the magazine she’d been reading. “Why are you meeting him at lunch?”
“Oh.” Taro realised he’d forgotten to tell them-not that he had to tell them everything, but whatever. “We said we’d finish that thing for Mr. Hanai together.”
“Isn’t that due-?”
Keisuke cut Emi off, “I bet Haruki’s gay,” he laughed. “He seems kind of gay. Don’t you guys think?”
Kenji looked down the hallway as if he could still see Haruki walking away. “Yeah. Kinda.”
Taro agreed, Haruki did seem pretty gay. “Yeah,” he laughed a little, because gays were funny and gross. “He’s pretty nice, though.”
Now the machine gun did nothing to soothe him, or make him feel better or anything. He knew who was alive; he didn’t want to use that on her. Emi wouldn’t have let some nice girl beat her. She was definitely still around.
He couldn’t pretend she wasn’t.
And then something happened that destroyed him. It made him want to cry because it just wasn’t right.
He saw her walking towards him.
Emi.
Emi was alive and he was alive.
They were definitely the last two standing.
“Taro-”
He saw her face-burnt, ghastly, disgusting, completely and utterly ruined. What the hell happened to her? He moved back, mostly because of her face, but also because he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to see her, or to talk to her.
And he wasn’t ready to kill her.
“I killed Keisuke!” Emi screamed it at him, like she was begging for forgiveness.
That was when Taro moved forward, just staring at her, letting her continue the tirade, recalling the people she killed, telling him that she killed her goddamn boyfriend.
Taro let her finish, because he thought she needed to do it, then he crouched down in front of her, hearing nothing but her shaken sobs. He sat down on the rocks, almost falling from exhaustion.
And then he reached his arms around her - for her, but for him, too - it was a guilty need to feel someone, to have them brace up against him and breathe into him. She didn’t stop him, she just fell into him, pressing her face against his shirt.
He needed it more than anything.
Emi carried on, Taro pulled her into him harder, resting into her hair. “I killed all of them. Tatsutarou was… He was an accident. Keisuke too. But… I thought that-that if someone could go home, it would be okay. That’s all I could do.”
Taro knew he couldn’t do anything-did she want him to do anything? He couldn’t take away the pain or the guilt she was feeling - she’d killed Keisuke, her boyfriend, her best friend, the guy she’d known almost forever - no matter how much he wanted to. And he really wanted to.
So he stayed quiet, embracing her, letting her sobs surround him, trying to feel what she was feeling but failing, knowing it wasn’t even possible. Killing Kouji or Kiku wasn’t the same-they weren’t lovers, or even best friends. And he hadn’t even known them for more than a few years.
Kouji was nothing to him; he had a hard time remembering why he even did what he did. In the end, neither of them really felt anything for the other.
Then there was Kiku, a fling-a stupid mistake, a gross night he hardly even remembered. The whole thing was crap. Meeting up with her was crap, killing her was even worse. It was an accident, but in the end… there was no baby. And that was a good thing, because it would’ve probably died anyway.
- The first day Kiku came back, when word had spread that she was a soon-to-be teenage mother, Taro saw her. She was walking with Daisuke-he was helping her, even though she really didn’t need the help (yet).
And she smiled at the four of them, holding her stomach. “Hi,” she said, mostly looking towards Taro.
“Hi,” they all said it together, sounding less than enthusiastic. Taro smiled at her a little. He was glad she told him that she wanted Daisuke to help her look after the baby.
The first of them said something as soon as she was out of earshot. “I can’t believe she’s pregnant,” Emi said. “Shouldn’t she get suspended?”
“And why’s she holding her stomach all the time?” Kenji looked up from his phone. “There’s not even a bump.”
Taro stayed quiet this time, because it wasn’t right for him to bitch about her when he did it to her. It was his fault she was pregnant and that everyone was calling her a whore or a slut or any other name under the sun.
He thought she could’ve had an abortion, though. Maybe.
Who ever heard of a baby in the Program?
She told him that she wanted Daisuke to look after it-
Nothing like that mattered anymore, because they were dead. Everyone but the two of them.
The two of them.
“What do we do now?” Emi finally spoke up, the shake in her voice still rooted firmly in there. She looked up at him, for a moment, and he saw her face again.
He could see Emi’s eyes, ignoring the burns and the cracked skin, and they were frightened. Maybe she was more scared than him.
“I don’t know,” Taro said, plain and simple, because he really didn’t know, and he never expected this to happen, for them to be the last two standing. He laughed, because he had to. It was hollow. Empty, devoid of anything other than sound. “I didn’t think this would happen…”
He didn’t want to let go of her, “Maybe… maybe we should just wait.”
“Okay.” Emi didn’t need to ask what he meant by ‘wait’.
After she said that, Taro couldn’t help but regret suggesting the idea of waiting to die. Forty-three people-no, forty-three kids-were dead, so what was the point of adding two more instead of one? He thought that someone should live, whoever it was, him or Emi, maybe it didn’t matter… but everyone dying was a waste.
It made the whole Program completely pointless.
“By the way, Emi-” Taro waited until she looked at him, he wanted to say it to her face, because that was the only way he could say it. He held her tighter. She didn’t smell like Emi anymore, just blood and sweat and maybe a little bit of dirt, but it didn’t matter to him. She was still Emi, and she was real and he could hold her. “… I don’t care that you killed anyone. It doesn’t matter.”
She didn’t say anything.
A lot of things didn’t matter anymore. He’d found that out himself.
“I…” And suddenly, Taro couldn’t bring himself to say what he did. Not to her.
Finally, after a long, drawn out pause, “I killed people too. And not just Miki…” Her body was still nearby-he caught a glimpse of it in the corner of his eye.
Emi didn’t ask ‘who?’, and Taro was glad, because he didn’t think he could tell her. He didn’t want to tell her. What would she think if he told her he killed a pregnant girl, and that she was in labour and she was having his kid? Emi would hate him.
He didn’t want this to end with them hating each other.
- It seemed like the vein in his head that wasn’t really there was about to burst when he left the classroom, sighing a little too loud to himself because Kazuhiro had managed to piss him off again. And he wasn’t a happy bunny about it.
Emi caught up to him first, so he slowed down, almost to a standstill. They pushed their way through the crowed, nestling against some lockers that didn’t even belong to them.
“Kazuhiro pisses me off sometimes,” Taro huffed-stating the obvious. “Well, most of the time.”
“He’s annoying,” Emi said, probably just offering some moral support. “But I got paired with Hana. You can’t get worse than her, can you?”
Taro laughed, because it was true. Kazuhiro might be a douche, but at least he was smart.
Kenji and Keisuke caught up to the two of them; hot on their tails was Kazuhiro, who began checking in his bag as soon as the other two stopped, muttering to himself about what he thought he’d left behind.
“Sorry, Taro,” Kazuhiro finally said, coming to the side of Kenji. “But if you’d just listen-”
Giving him the are-you-fucking-serious-with-that-shit? look, Taro scoffed loudly. “I don’t need to listen to you.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Just stop fucking bossing me around whenever we’re paired together,” Taro kicked the lower locker, pushing away hard. “Dick.”
Taro wasn’t sure how much time had passed, or even how long they had left. It was probably less than an hour. He expected his collar-he’d almost forgotten about it until now-to start beeping any second now. And then it’d be over.
He just wanted all this to be over.
He almost didn’t care if he lived or died, he just wanted everything to end.
Just the world to end.
- When Katashi walked by, hair looking like purple dog shit, arms dressed in jewellery that nobody should be seen dead in, they couldn’t help but judge.
“That guy looks a mess,” Keisuke said, gawking at just how ridiculous the purple-haired freak looked.
“I heard he fucks dead animals,” Taro said, even though he hadn’t really heard anything.
“What?” Emi burst out laughing, her face a mix of disgust and hilarity.
He just laughed at their reaction.
Taro waited for Emi to stop before saying anything. “Well-okay, I didn’t hear anything, but I saw him carrying around a dead dog once. I just assumed the worst.” He shrugged, smirking. He knew he shouldn’t be saying stuff like that, but it wasn’t like it was going to pass through anybody else but them.
“He probably does,” Kenji chipped in.
The two of them were sat together, side-by-side, just like old times. Taro had his arm around her; Emi had her head on his shoulder. If they were back home and doing this, Keisuke might see them and be jealous. But here it wasn’t about that, Taro just needed someone to be close to.
“You know…” Emi finally spoke up, Taro was happy she didn’t seem as scared as before. “If Keisuke saw this, he’d flip. He always did.”
Taro laughed, sounding more genuine and real than he had in the past few days. But it still wasn’t right. “He totally would.”
It seemed to ease the tension, because the two of them started to talk. Not about anything in particular-just things they remembered, stupid and pointless and fun things that back then, Taro didn’t think he’d recall just before he was about to die. But he was happy to talk about them, even though it made him wish even harder that this never happened.
If it hadn’t, they’d probably all be on the coach now, heading back home, tired, but enjoying it all the same. They might laugh about something totally hilarious that happened on the trip-it’d be something they remembered for a week or so, but then it’ll soon whittle away into nothingness, and they’d soon forget about it altogether.
Because it really wasn’t all that special.
Instead they were clinging on to their last moments, helpless, because there was nothing they could do about it. Not really.
Once they stopped talking, the dreaded silence set in, stretching forever. It wasn’t awkward, or really anything. It was just silence.
And it made him feel like he was about to die.
And he probably was.
Taro knew he wasn’t strong. He couldn’t just sit around and wait. He wanted to protect Emi, but he wanted to protect himself too.
He wasn’t sure which he wanted more.
But he knew it couldn’t end this way.
“-I don’t think I can do this,” Taro was trembling. He moved away from Emi, ashamed and appalled at himself, but mostly scared. They’re so close to dying-he wanted to tell himself he could handle it, he’d be telling himself he could, but he knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t just sit and wait for the end to come.
Emi was shaking, too. “What should we do?” her voice was as nervous and frightened as before.
There wasn’t a lot of time left. Hiroto was probably getting a sick kick out of watching this, hovering over the microphone, just waiting for one of them to flip. That’s what always happened.
It was him or her, Hanazawa or Sekiyama. Taro was okay with either. Well-no, he wasn’t okay with them at all, no matter what happened it’d blow, but at least him or his best friend would be able to live past high school, and maybe do something great. Just like everyone’s supposed to.
You’re not supposed to die before your life has even begun, not when you’re seventeen.
“Maybe we should just go,” Taro didn’t want to ask her head on, but when he looked at her it was obvious she knew what he meant. He had to turn away.
He hated himself.
“Okay,” Emi said again.
He hated himself so goddamn much.
Taro hoped she wasn’t looking when he picked up the machine gun; it was only a few inches away from Miki’s body, and he was glad he didn’t have to pry it out of her hands. He didn’t bother picking up his bag. He didn’t need it anymore.
This was the end.
They both looked at each other, Taro tried to smile, but he just cried instead, stingy and hot. In less than five minutes one of them would be dead.
Before he could stop himself - he knew it would hurt afterwards, but he did it anyway - Taro hugged Emi. He pressed into her, crying into her hair. He didn’t want to let go. He wanted this to last forever.
“… I’m sorry,” he muffled into her hair. Taro didn’t know why it had to happen this way.
That was all he could say to her. It wasn’t enough.
It’d never be enough.
Why did it have to be the two of them?
He finally pulled away from her. They said they’d be friends forever-it was the bullshit you tell your friends at school, but it’s never really true. They’d part ways after high school, and maybe they’d see each other ten years later, share a few words, and part again. Forever.
But Taro had always believed it.
The two of them started walking away the opposite way.
“We’re still friends, right?” Taro was crying harder than ever, but he couldn’t look back. Not yet.
“When did we say we weren’t?” Emi was crying too.
Nothing was ever enough.
((FINAL FTD, GUYS. Wait for a mod to open a vote, y'know the drill. Good luck, Zarrah. ♥ This version has been a blast. :3))