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IMPORTANT TO EVERYONE!!

Accel had a good idea. I'm not going to ask all of you to spill your secrets to me or anything, but by now I'm going to hope that most of you have at least one or two people you trust.

So everyone drop their name here if you're willing to volunteer to hold secret someone's important moments. If you want to trust someone with your important memory as a precaution in case you get caught by the shadows, reply to them in a locked thread.

If you would rather be shot instead of telling someone a way you think might be able to save you, I'll volunteer to take anyone out quickly and painlessly.

ADDITIONALLY: I keep getting a ton of requests for atomic restructuring, so I'm going to do a workshop on Friday at 1pm. Show up or don't complain. And if you do show up, don't complain either. Even if you're a genius at picking things up, it'll take at least 3 hours to even make a little pin. It's not easy, it takes a lot of concentration and imagination, and you're going to have to practice on your own.

If there aren't any questions, make a comment to volunteer if you're willing to help with any of those.

{{ OOC: if your character is going to the workshop, RSVP them here. Otherwise, feel to comment around to anyone! }}

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I'll definitely help with either case, of course, but if in any case I turn into an NPC, I'd rather not be saved, thank you very much.

Haruhi, do you want to tell me what's been going on with you lately? You've been acting weird.

I plead the fifth. I don't want to really talk about it.

I won't make you talk, but you should know that there are people who will worry about you if you suddenly ask for a DNR.

I don't think there's as many people who would actually worry about me if that did happen.

[ Emphasis on the 'if'. ]

It doesn't matter how many there are, there are some people. Self included, so don't act like no one cares about you.

It's not like I don't know that people care. But there's a difference between caring about someone and understanding them. Besides, you can "care" about someone without truly caring. If you don't understand them, how can you say that you truly care about them...?

Most people here don't even understand themselves, let alone be capable of understanding other people. We're all worried about our own problems and we have so much to deal with, Haruhi. I know that you've got issues of your own but no one's going to understand them at all if you don't talk to people. Even out of the people who have powers here, there aren't any mind readers or empaths.

You're the one who doesn't give a damn about anything here according to what you told me, so maybe you should start letting someone in instead of blaming all of us for not understanding you. There are plenty of people willing to listen, so find someone to give a damn about and they'll give a damn about you back.

Maybe they'll even find a reason to trust you with something important and expect you not to go run around telling the exact person they asked you not to just because you're scared even if you haven't actually tried anything else.

... Well, sorry, but I can't do that.

[ The last time she opened up to someone, that person went and disappeared on her. She doesn't want to talk about her feelings, nor does she trust herself not to break down if she says anything. Just because she's weak and knows it doesn't mean that she wants other people knowing things about her.

It's not as if she doesn't care, she's just building up walls to make it seem like she doesn't. ]

Because after all, in the end it's just going to end up in the same way. I don't care anymore. I'm sick and tired of all of this, and I'm even angry at myself because I know that everyone's dealing with this just as bad as I am. But I'm even angrier at the fact that I can actually understand the Programmer and sympathize with him, alright...?

You think you're the only one who understands where he's coming from? Just because you understand it doesn't mean you have to believe in it, or that you have to give into it.

Being able to live a normal life like that, enjoying the stupid, simple things like laughing with a friend in class and zoning out during class then screaming when you didn't take notes and there's a quiz the next day.. that kind of peace would be a beautiful thing. But if you give up who you are, you lose everyone you've ever cared about anyway. You lose them, you lose yourself, and you disrespect their memory by forgetting them. You'd forget the good along with all of the bad. Most of us have been sick and tired of everything even before we died. But when it comes down to it, giving up is no good, okay?

Because I understand is the reason why I have to force myself to forget.

In the end, they weren't able to remember me at all anyway, so what's the point of me remembering them? Even if I'm supposed to deal with it all, take it all in so I can remain being me, remain being human- but I don't even know if I can do that anymore. I've already lost myself by being here and finding out the truth. It was supposed to end once I found that! I was excited; there were really aliens, time travelers, and espers, you know! That was my goal in life. To find something different, to find something that wasn't ordinary. Day in and day out, I kept on repeating the same thing over and over again, but then I decided to change it all. Of course, I couldn't do it without help, but then I found out I died? I was mad! Of course I would be! After all, I didn't fulfill my goal, right? I failed as a leader. I failed everyone, I thought. But then I found out I wasn't the only one here. I wasn't alone. But I was still as insignificant as I was before. I'm only one person out of so many, over a billion people who lived on Earth. I wanted to become someone who everyone could see me. I was selfish; I wanted to be noticed by someone.

Then I found out on the first day that I came here that everything was wiped away. That's why I don't mind losing my memories. I don't mind changing my personality. It's the same as it was in reality, either way. I don't care about myself anymore, I don't care. In the end, I still failed.

I even asked if I could make a replacement. That was my plan all along, if I were to turn in Ai-chan. I was conflicted. Did I really want to delude myself into an illusion? It was possible, sure, but how long would it last? I didn't know. I wouldn't know. And I had to push all of that aside because I had to be "me". I had to play the role of the person that everyone saw Haruhi Suzumiya as. That's what was expected of me, right? As someone who was strong, made stupid decisions, kicked ass, and was completely and utterly weird, but sorry, only half of that is true at this point. That may have been who I was before, when I was alive, but a year in the afterlife changes a person.

Anyway... I should have been the one to disappear. It should have been me all along. Because, after all, it's only obvious that neither of our feelings were strong enough, right?! That's why I messed up repeatedly...!

Haha... Even though I said I didn't want to say anything, I went and said it anyay. Ah, I don't really care what you think about me, okay? I don't plan on doing anything at all at this point.

No one expects any of that from you. Just like if I went and abandoned everyone, no one would be able to say anything. It wouldn't be the first time I've done it. Whatever you want to do is what you should do, so long as you understand that if you do something to hurt the people I care about I won't hesitate to bury you far deeper than 6 feet under.

Whatever it is you thought you were looking for in life, the paranormal probably wasn't what you really wanted. The reality is that we don't always know what we want until we lose it, and maybe that's what losing those people from your life was. Whether you failed or are a leader or if you just want to play music or throw a ball, that's what you should do.

[ Yuri pauses for a moment, hesitant to say it but.. ]

It sounds like what you want is to move on, not to become trapped here. You keep talking about a year in the afterlife, but people like the programmer were here for so much longer. Even before I was here, and I don't even know how long that was because I gave up keeping track because there wasn't a point in keeping time when you're alone.

I know you don't give a damn what I think and you obviously don't give a damn if I trust you or not, but at least know that I'm not going to lie and tell you that things get better quickly. A year is nothing, and sometimes it'll hurt and it'll pull you down, but you can't give up, Haruhi. Rather than giving up, I think you need to take some time to figure out what you want instead of what everyone else wants out of you. That's the only way to make people notice you: fight as hard as you can for what you believe in and what's in your heart. When other people see you earnestly putting yourself into something, even if you screw up or make mistakes or have a rough time, that's when they notice you. You just have to stop worrying about whether or not people notice you and worry about what you need most, okay? And I can tell you right now that you'll never have anything if you become an NPC and stay that way.

That man.. the programmer. He sought this fate because the person he loved moved on without him, and he got stuck because he loved that person so much that he couldn't move on unless he saw her again. So he decided he would make himself fall asleep unless that person's soul returned to the afterlife, but what then? Even if the 0.000000000000001% chance actually came true and she returned, she would never remember him because it wouldn't be the woman he fell in love with anymore. It would be a new person built out of similar parts. Even if she appeared, how would he know? She could look different, and he wouldn't have memories to even be able to recognize her because he was an NPC. If he woke up and fell in love, his own program would absorb him again whether he lost her or not.

That's why I know that the only way that someone who could accept becoming an NPC is someone who's given up instead of figuring out what it was they really needed. I think I understand where you're coming from now, but that doesn't mean I think you're right or that you should just give up, Haruhi. Especially not so easily.

The paranormal was exactly what I wanted. To live a life that was different than anyone else's was what I had dreamed about for so long. I'm not deluding myself, and I'm not saying that isn't true. It was the most important thing that was closest to my heart for so long because every single day when I woke up, I was just simply doing the same exact actions that everyone else was doing. Waking up, eating breakfast, brushing my teeth, going to school... Those were all normal things that everyone else did.

What I wanted was to become unique.

That's what I wanted in my life. I finally sought that chance by finding what I wanted, but now I'm stuck here because there was something that I was unable to say. I'm stuck here because I'm waiting for someone, and I don't know if they'll ever come back or even if they'll ever remember me. I already know what I want all too well and I'm not going to deny that.

Even if I've only been here a year, even if there's other people that were here longer than I was, I don't know how long I'll be able to last like this. A year may be nothing to you, it may be nothing to the other SSS members, and it may be nothing to the programmer, but to me, a year is over three hundred days wasted, trying to fix everything, trying to do all I can to make everything right, and then, ultimately failing because now it's impossible to fix... Now, I can't wait for someone who's already passed on. I shouldn't have to. I've tried to move on with my life, but I've finally realized that my feelings are too strong that I can't do something like that. If I moved on now, what would happen then? Would I forget who I was? Would I have feelings for someone else entirely? Would I become insignificant?

What kind of joke is that...!

I already know what it's like to become an NPC, and I hated it, down to my very core. But now, I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do because if I give up, I can go back to living a normal life, regardless of how much I forget or how much I lose myself, but if I choose not to give up, I have to wait here forever?! I'm getting bored of all this! It's the same as reality, and I hate it!

"When is something interesting going to happen?" I tell myself. I was actually interested in the glitches for once. And when the shadows turned up the first time, I was intrigued by them too! I was like, "Hey, this is actually interesting!" I made the mistake of turning myself an NPC that way.

But then-- then-- I found out why the shadows showed up. When I found that out, I was shocked. I was terrified. But not because I was wrong about them. But because I thought that it was all my fault that it all happened! I blamed myself for the first two shadow attacks. The first one coming from my own realization. The second one coming from me trying to block it out.

This one wasn't my fault, and I know that, but I've been having guilt eat at me ever since then.

That's why I'm simply doing nothing at this point. I can't be useful, nor can I be useless. It's weird, though, that I've actually been using all my time lately to look for that stupid Angel Player...

[ Yuri stays silent for a while. If what Haruhi had been looking for in the supernatural had been wrong, that maybe she just was confusing wants with needs in life, then maybe she could have taken this another way. She might have been able to understand it, but something about this reasoning just couples with Haruhi's other behavior-- telling Yuri she doesn't care what she thinks, betraying her trust-- and makes Yuri believe that honestly, she isn't someone who Yuri can connect with in the way that she'd thought they had.

Yuri wasn't sure what to do at this point. Keep telling her that things will get better? She knew that they wouldn't. It was either you worked it out yourself or you kept being miserable for years and years because you wouldn't let it go. And besides... while half of what Haruhi's argument seemed to be was that she missed her chance to say she loved Kyon, the other half was just that she was bored. The world wasn't good enough for her. ]

Isn't it your own fault if you're bored? You can't appreciate anything that's around you, but you want everyone to appreciate and understand you? You said before that you had to live up to everyone's expectations, but aren't you the one who's basically saying that no one's living up to yours? And that the only person who you could ever possibly give a damn about became a missed opportunity?

The entire world doesn't revolve around you, Haruhi. It never will. And if you're believing that the shadows appeared because of you, then you've deluded yourself into thinking it has. If it had, it never would've stopped because you're obviously still in pain now and the only reason the shadows are here is because they were activated.

I don't usually bother telling people to be patient, and I'm a terrible example of it, but I feel like for once, I'm going to have to tell you to try to learn it. If you don't, you're going to have a tough time because every time you become an NPC, I'll shoot you in the face so you can keep trying.

[ At that, she clenches her hands into tight fists. Why does she have to be patient? Why does she have to wait? Days were going to go by while she continued to have nightmares every time she went to bed.

Even if she did tell him, what could she have done?

She had already tried so many times to bring him back. It was just like this. She had recreated a memory, something simple. Then she showed him the movie that they made together. She did so many things and they didn't work out.

The world doesn't revolve around her? That was something she knew, deep down. Yet she wished for it. And although she didn't know, she honestly was the center of attention in the world, being a pseudo-goddess. She wanted something more. What that "more" was, she didn't know. But then her mind went back to that dream that she had. Everything, everything was being destroyed.

And that conversation, that spoke about a new world...

But she had already chosen to keep the old one, didn't she? ]

I already know that this time isn't my fault.

[ She's ignoring the first part of what Yuri's telling her. Because she knows it's true. What does she truly want? She doesn't know anymore. She wants to do her life over, but that's no good. That's like saying all she's done up to now is left for nothing.

For nothing.

Was she wrong?

Was she always wrong about everything...?

No. She had figured something out before, hadn't she? She figured out who the NPC was. She figured out that a second part was involved in the NPC's creation. She figured out that the Programmer messed up. That was all her.

But where did she go wrong?

Kyon had disappeared around the time the shadows showed up the second time. That much she knew. And when it happened, she had one person to turn to so she could talk about it. But then they disappeared, too. Everyone she cared about was going to disappear in the end.

So what could she do? What was she able to do? She couldn't do anything. Just because she was smart and knew things didn't mean that she could do something about this situation. She had planned on figuring something out to get her mind off of things, but then she messed up.

She messed up again.

It was all her fault that this happened, right?

But she keeps those words safe in her pocket, deciding not to say a word. ]

Even if I do be patient, what will happen then? Even if I wait, things might change again. If I see him again, how do I know it's the same person? How do I know they haven't come from some alternate universe or have different memories? Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it's also possible for them to fall in love with someone else, right? It's not like I knew if they had feelings for me in the first place.

[ She then continues, but her tone is so dead, so empty that it's a dull monotone. ]

If it's not my fault, then did they just show up because they were activated every single time? What for? The second time would make sense if it's connected to now, actually. It would make so much sense to me. After all, that's exactly when the NPC showed up, right? The dates clash exactly.

But what about the first time? I'm not asking you for answers; I don't expect you to know even though you've been here the longest out of all of us along with the fact that you just turned back.

Anyway, I think I just need some time alone.

[ Yuri doesn't respond to her questions. After all, Haruhi already stated that she didn't expect her to have the answers and Yuri honestly didn't have most of them. Most of those questions were things that Haruhi would have to figure out for herself. Some of the things were questions that they all needed answered and if Yuri had those answers, some things would be a little easier. ]

Take your time, but until you've figured out the answers to those questions I'm going to ask you not to give up.

[ Yuri pauses for a moment. ]

All becoming an NPC will do is leave you with no answers and then if we defeat the Programmer, then there won't be a program to keep you one anymore.

I'll give you some alone time, so don't do anything stupid.

The fuck are you saying now?!

[ Just hearing that she would actually stay like that makes him mad. ]

You heard me. But that's only in the hypothetical situation if that happens.

You think some 'if' is going to make it any better that you've got these kind of nonsense ideas in your head?!

[ He's bad at dealing with things sensitively, he really is, so he just gets angry. It's a bad habit. ]

For the record, it's not nonsense, and I have a good reason to not care. I don't plan on being reckless, though. I just really don't care what happens to me.

[ It's not like he's the kind of person who would put self-preservation at the highest priority. He certainly survived a lot and keeps going - but that's because someone else gives him reason to. So it's not exactly fair how furious it makes him to hear her say what she says. ]

Then you shouldn't care if someone brings you back either. Like hell I'd let you stay one of that crow, if you got yourself stupidly turned into one.

I care a hell of a lot more about turning back to normal than I do about being an NPC. I've been one before, so I already know what it's like.

You know it and you still can say that so easily - you really are crazy.

I'm not crazy. There's just some feelings that I want to disappear.

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