[Fic] Mirrors
Characters: Naoto, Naoki
Rating: PG
A/N: Another AU fanfic. My muses are getting odder and odder.
======================
When we look into mirrors, what do we see?
We see our reflection, a copy of ourselves.
These entities copy our every move; we move our right arm, they move their left.
We take this for granted.
So tell me this: what if we move our right arm, and our reflection does not react?
What would you do?
======================
They used to play together when they were children. They would sit side by side, pushing toy cars and trucks around and towards each other.
They found it strange that they had the same toys, with the same defects. A blue car with no front wheels, a chip off the rear fender of a red truck. Naoto said that he had pushed the car too hard into the wall. Naoki sheepishly said that he had dropped the truck off the top of a ladder.
======================
They confided in each other.
Naoto did not understand why his mother tells him to stop talking to himself, when he was just enacting a scene set in a desert sand storm. Naoki did not understand why his mother kept telling him to go outside, that the weather was beautiful and don’t you want to make more friends?
======================
Adults will be adults. They think that by simply denying that the problem exists, said problem would go away.
Eventually, they were unable to delude themselves any longer.
The boys, now teenagers, did not even get the chance to say goodbye.
======================
His room in the local hospital was so simply furnished that it almost seemed like a prison cell. With no windows, he had no idea how many days had passed since he was admitted.
There wasn’t even a mirror in the room.
They had started with taking him to some posh office, attempting to get him to talk to some doctor.
But why would he, when he hadn’t seen his friend for so long? He was just there! From the look on his face, his best friend wanted to play too!
When attempts at conversation failed, they stopped letting him out of his room. Medicine was prescribed, presumably by that doctor that he was supposed to have been talking to. He never saw the point in all this fuss; he wasn’t even sick!
They did not listen to his protests, and instead forced the drugs down his throat.
======================
Lies.
“I thought I had a friend who lives in the mirror.”
All lies.
“Now that I say it out, it sounds absolutely ridiculous.”
An uncontrolled chuckle bubbled out from his throat, slowly turning into full out peals of laughter.
His friend would understand, wouldn’t he?
======================
Now in his twenties, he had been deemed fit enough to be discharged. He was given more medicine, with instructions to take them thrice daily, and to come back to the pharmacy with the prescription form when he was running out.
The ride home was filled with awkward silence.
The moment after stepping into the doorway, he sought refuge in his room, tuning out his mother’s pleas to stop ignoring her.
He set his backpack down on the chair and slid down the wall, pinching the bridge of his nose as he did so. If this was what “therapy” resulted in, how was it even supposed to be beneficial?
He glanced at the mirror in the corner of his room, and a familiar face looked back at him.
“Naoki?”
“Naoto?”
“You look terrible.”
Naoki shot his best friend a wry grin.
“And you haven’t aged a single day.”
Rating: PG
A/N: Another AU fanfic. My muses are getting odder and odder.
======================
When we look into mirrors, what do we see?
We see our reflection, a copy of ourselves.
These entities copy our every move; we move our right arm, they move their left.
We take this for granted.
So tell me this: what if we move our right arm, and our reflection does not react?
What would you do?
======================
They used to play together when they were children. They would sit side by side, pushing toy cars and trucks around and towards each other.
They found it strange that they had the same toys, with the same defects. A blue car with no front wheels, a chip off the rear fender of a red truck. Naoto said that he had pushed the car too hard into the wall. Naoki sheepishly said that he had dropped the truck off the top of a ladder.
======================
They confided in each other.
Naoto did not understand why his mother tells him to stop talking to himself, when he was just enacting a scene set in a desert sand storm. Naoki did not understand why his mother kept telling him to go outside, that the weather was beautiful and don’t you want to make more friends?
======================
Adults will be adults. They think that by simply denying that the problem exists, said problem would go away.
Eventually, they were unable to delude themselves any longer.
The boys, now teenagers, did not even get the chance to say goodbye.
======================
His room in the local hospital was so simply furnished that it almost seemed like a prison cell. With no windows, he had no idea how many days had passed since he was admitted.
There wasn’t even a mirror in the room.
They had started with taking him to some posh office, attempting to get him to talk to some doctor.
But why would he, when he hadn’t seen his friend for so long? He was just there! From the look on his face, his best friend wanted to play too!
When attempts at conversation failed, they stopped letting him out of his room. Medicine was prescribed, presumably by that doctor that he was supposed to have been talking to. He never saw the point in all this fuss; he wasn’t even sick!
They did not listen to his protests, and instead forced the drugs down his throat.
======================
Lies.
“I thought I had a friend who lives in the mirror.”
All lies.
“Now that I say it out, it sounds absolutely ridiculous.”
An uncontrolled chuckle bubbled out from his throat, slowly turning into full out peals of laughter.
His friend would understand, wouldn’t he?
======================
Now in his twenties, he had been deemed fit enough to be discharged. He was given more medicine, with instructions to take them thrice daily, and to come back to the pharmacy with the prescription form when he was running out.
The ride home was filled with awkward silence.
The moment after stepping into the doorway, he sought refuge in his room, tuning out his mother’s pleas to stop ignoring her.
He set his backpack down on the chair and slid down the wall, pinching the bridge of his nose as he did so. If this was what “therapy” resulted in, how was it even supposed to be beneficial?
He glanced at the mirror in the corner of his room, and a familiar face looked back at him.
“Naoki?”
“Naoto?”
“You look terrible.”
Naoki shot his best friend a wry grin.
“And you haven’t aged a single day.”