Computer [2/3]
Part 2!
4.
“You’re awake.”
A tinny voice greeted him. Nino! Ohno quickly sat up, but immediately he felt a sharp pain on his left arm, in addition to the dull ache in his head. He gasped out loud in pain. He looked down, and what he saw almost made him throw up.
There was a knife plunged into his arm, silver and gleaming just above his forearm. Blood was streaming out of the wound, and a sickening stench of blood filled the air. It smelt like rusted iron.
Nino was watching him. He was defying gravity, bobbing several centimetres above the ground, and he was, as usual, haze-like.
Except, Ohno noticed as a lump rose in his throat, he looked more solid, almost like a real human than an image.
Nino continued to stare at him wordlessly.
“Nino?” Ohno inquired tentatively. There was something about the current Nino that scared Ohno. His eyes were blazing with emotion. Was it love? Or hatred? Ohno couldn’t tell; Nino had always been good in hiding his true emotions.
There was no reply.
“Nino, what are you doing?? Did you do this?” Ohno tried to gesture at his arm without looking at it. It made him feel sick to look at it. And it reminded him of the pain. “Why did you do this?” HOW did you do this? Ohno wanted to ask.
Nino seemed to be able to read him like a book, as usual. He grinned eerily. Ohno felt a chill run up his spine. Nino picked up a stray paintbrush from the floor and tossed it at a wall nearby, so hard that it snapped into two and fell onto the floor. “I can touch things.” He replied simply. Then Ohno realised.
This wasn’t the Nino he knew.
This Nino was mad.
Ohno finally understood. The power hadn’t been cut off. Nino has been absorbed all the electricity to power the computer more than its original capacity it was made to do so, helping his ‘ghost’ to assume a form that could now touch things, to lift things up and…
To put a knife through Ohno’s arm.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Ohno said, biting back the pain, “Why did you do this!”
Nino’s eyes flared, and he picked up a half of the broken paintbrush and threw it at the wall again. This time, the force was so great that it shattered, scattering debris on Ohno’s carpet. Ohno winced.
Nino stood still for a moment. “Do you love me?” He suddenly asked, his voice ice cold, so unlike the Nino Ohno knew.
Ohno was confused with Nino’s sudden question. “Wha-what are you saying-“
“ANSWER ME!” Nino suddenly shouted. The computer beside Ohno shuddered, as through a surge of power had been sent through it. “Do you love me?”
“Of, of course I do Nino! What makes you say that?” Ohno felt afraid. The Nino in front of him was out of control, and extremely unstable.
“You liar.”
“Wha-?“
“YOU LIAR!” The ghost-Ohno refused to think of him as Nino-screamed at him.
“No I didn’t-“
“Why did you revive me?” Nino asked quietly.
Ohno couldn’t think properly. The pain in his arm was ebbing is conscious away. “Be…because I missed you-“
“No.”
“What?”
“No. That’s not true.”
“It’s true! I missed you so much, and I love you…” Ohno started to say, but Nino hissed at him.
“You,” Nino went up to Ohno and jabbed his shoulder. The impact made Ohno’s arm hurt. “didn’t revive me because of that. You’ve forgotten about our love already.”
“What? How could I-“
“How could you? But you did, Oh-chan. You forgot about our love.”
“If I’ve forgotten then I wouldn’t have tried so hard to revive you!” Ohno finally spluttered before Nino could interrupt him. Nino had to listen to him. Nino seemed to be delirious. Maybe there was something wrong with the programming that made Nino start thinking such things.
Nino’s eyes narrowed. “You know that’s not true.”
“Then what? What is it Nino?!” Ohno wanted to get away from Nino.
“Think. How did you feel when I died?”
Ohno didn’t know what Nino was getting at, but decided to go along with him. “Um… Really really sad. Heartbroken. That’s why I tried to rev-”
Nino cut him off. “And then?”
And then? “And then… I decided to build you?”
“No!” Nino’s voice thundered about the walls of the house. “How did you feel?”
How did he feel? I wanted to revive Nino, he wanted to built Nino, or at least bring Nino’s soul back again, because he was sad, he felt like he was indebted to Nino… he felt guilty because he had caused Nino’s death.
Then Ohno finally got it.
He felt guilt.
Nino saw the understanding dawn on Ohno’s face, and eyed him with a grim but satisfied smile.
“Yes, guilt. It was guilt that made you want to revive me. You thought you killed me, that’s why you revived me... because you were guilty.”
Ohno finally understood. He understood why Nino was so upset with him. He should have known; Nino always understood him better than he did of himself.
“I…” The image of Nino looked suddenly sad. He said softly, “I don’t want you to save me just because you felt guilty.”
Ohno felt his heart sink.
“I feel so empty. I feel like I’m just here to…” Nino’s voice cracked as he went on, “… to stop you from feeling guilty. Like it’s my only purpose for my existence.”
“It’s not true Nino!” Ohno tried to get up, to wrap his arms around Nino and tell him that even if he was made out of Ohno’s guilt, Ohno would still love him, but his wound held him back. He was losing blood profusely, and he felt himself getting weaker by the minute, but Nino didn’t notice.
Which was unlike Nino.
It was even more unlike Nino, to stab Ohno with a knife just to manifest his helplessness.
Nino wouldn’t explode and start going crazy on Ohno.
Nino was the best at containing his emotions out of the five of them in Arashi. Nino always thought things through carefully before doing things.
And most of all, Nino never acted like that in at Ohno, ever.
This was when Ohno realised that maybe Nino was mad after all.
But it was too late.
Nino turned towards him, his eyes now completely devoid of its twinkle. And in his hand, was another knife.
“What are you doing Nino! S-stop!” Ohno’s voice shook as he eyed Nino with fear in his eyes.
“You gave me a life… But with nothing left in it! There’s no meaning to be ‘alive’ because you’re no longer there, Oh-chan. You’ve left me.” There was pain in Nino’s voice. And however hard Ohno tried to deny it, he knew that Nino was right. He had selfishly brought Nino back to life, to satisfy his own guilt, to make him feel better, but at the same time, he had totally forgotten about Nino’s feelings.
The image of Nino wandering aimlessly around the house a while ago floated into his mind.
Ohno tried to bite back the tears that were threatening to flow. He closed his eyes, and braced himself for the final blow. If that would make Nino feel better, he would let Nino kill him. But not out of guilt but-
Out of love.
Because Ohno loved Nino.
Ohno heard the rustle of the blade being lifted into the air above him.
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5.
Suddenly, the front door crashed open and Aiba came sprinting in at full speed, followed by a panting Sho and Jun. Aiba snatched the knife out of Nino’s hand-it helped that Aiba was a lot stronger than Nino-the knife clattered on the floor.
Nino stood stunned, staring at the knife on the floor.
“What are you doing!” Jun yelled at Nino, staring in shock at the bleeding figure of Ohno in front of the computer. Sho quickly scrambled to help the pale Ohno.
“I… I,” Nino stuttered. He seemed to be more like himself now. His eyes were soft and brown again, and his hands were shaking. “I… Oh my g- I…I almost… I almost kil -”
“You almost killed Ohno,” Jun finished grimly.
“Nino…” Ohno rasped out weakly at the younger man.
“I-no I didn’t! I won’t! I… I almost killed Oh-chan,“ He cried, struggling with himself. The rest eyed Nino cautiously. There was something very wrong with him.
“It-it’s the programme! There’s something wrong with his programming!” Ohno said, holding on to his arm where Sho had just removed the knife.
Nino was still struggling with himself-His true self and the malfunctioning programme - Suddenly, he picked the knife up from the floor, so swiftly that Jun and Aiba weren’t able to react fast enough, Ohno thought that Nino was going to come at him again, and squeezed his eyes tightly shut again, but to Ohno shock, Nino raised the knife and plunged it into his own chest.
Aiba and Sho shouted. Ohno stood there momentarily, too stunned to react, until Nino fell.
Ohno came to his senses and ran towards Nino as quickly as the pain in his mangled arm allowed him to. Nino was breathing heavily, and his eyes were already half closed. “Satoshi…” he breathed raising a cold hand to touch Ohno’s cheek.
“I… I figured that if I could touch things then I could kill myself too… I’m a genius, aren’t I?” Nino coughed violently. “May… maybe I should be a mad scientist and invent a computer too…” He weakly choked out a laugh.
Ohno felt tears flow down his cheeks. He held Nino tightly with his valid arm. “Trust you to still be making jokes at this time…”
“Kazu… Why must you kill yourself??”
Nino smiled. “Because I’m dangerous. Because I can’t control myself. These things I do, Oh-chan, they just come out on their own. I can’t control them… I don’t want to hurt you…“ Nino coughed, his eyes almost fully closed now.
“Nino! NINO!” Ohno cried. His heart was pounding painfully against his ribcage. He couldn’t believe that Nino was going to die after all. He made Nino suffer death twice, and both times it had been indirectly Ohno’s fault. Nino had killed himself so that the monster Ohno had made in him would not hurt Ohno.
Aiba stared at the monster of a computer. “Is there a way to help Nino?? How can we save him?” Just by looking at the computer made his head spin. There were too many knobs and buttons and dials and lights and everything else everywhere, but Aiba couldn’t bear to see his best friend die again.
“We can reset him,” Ohno said, looking up. He had almost forgotten about it.
“Reset...?”
“Make him back to his original state. Start off from how he was when I just made him.” Ohno went to the centre of the computer, where there was a large screen and a keyboard with weird symbols on it. He quickly tapped on the keys, a code that would reset Nino’s system.
All this time, Ohno kept looking over to Nino, who was lying on the carpet, the knife sticking out of his chest. His eyes were closed and Ohno hoped that he was not too late. He pressed the last key of the code.
The Nino on the carpet disappeared; the bloodstained knife fell onto the carpet.
Ohno heaved a sigh of relief.
An image appeared on the screen of the computer. “Hello, I am Ninomiya Kazunari, but you can call me Nino.” He smiled sweetly at the other four. “Oh hello everyone! I missed you guys,” Nino’s ‘ghost’ materialised right beside Sho. Sho let out a yelp of surprise.
Nino was back to his translucent self, and the twinkle in his eyes was back. “What had happened here?” He glanced around the messy living room, at the two bloodstained knives and the broken paintbrush. “Oh-chan! What happened to you??” Nino’s voice was worried.
The other four looked at each other. Nino seemed to have forgotten everything that had happened.
Or so they thought.
Nino’s twinkling eyes were suddenly sad as he surveyed the mess around him and Ohno’s injured arm.
“Oh… it… it was me, right? It was me who hurt you, and brought so much trouble to everyone…” Nino’s voice was sad as he comprehended the situation. He paused.
“I’m sick you know, Oh-chan,” Nino said. “There’s something wrong with me.”
Nino knows about the programming fault, Ohno thought.
Ohno opened his mouth to say something, but Nino cut him off.
Nino looked down at the ground and mumbled, “I don’t want to hurt you anymore you know.” Nino paused. “Please, Oh-chan, please destroy me.”
Ohno felt as though his heart had been ripped into a million pieces.
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On to part 3~