Jinzou Enemy

[cws: mentions of suicide & alcoholism, alcohol use, swearing] 

     Yamato was not out of bed for long before he crawled back under the covers, this time with his laptop. His eyelids felt heavy, like they wanted more rest than the twelve hours they had gotten. But the glowing screen in front of him called to him more. He stared at his wallpaper for a moment: a vase of peach roses and lilies beside a paper airplane. Then he opened Google Chrome and clicked the bookmark plainly labelled “Work”. His inbox showed 4 unread messages, all loaded with PDFs and requests from higher-ups. The PDFs contained documentation of finances in need of being proofread, so he leaned back against his pillow and began to skim read.

     The numbers were starting to blend together in his sleepy brain when a cluster of lime green pixels flashed in his peripheral vision somewhere near the trash icon. It disappeared as soon as he glanced at it, so he shrugged it off and went back to work. But as soon as he resumed his reading, it popped up again. This time, though, it remained there long enough for him to realize what it was: slender fingers barely poking out from under a long green sweater sleeve; a hand flapping back and forth in greeting. 

     “Eh? What the hell…” Yamato muttered, moving his cursor to hover over the hand. Before he could click, it vanished and a head popped up in its place. The rest followed, a sprite of a man about the size of Yamato's finger. His silver hair just barely reached his shoulders, and the pixels that made up his face were detailed enough to convey a gleam of light in his eyes. The lime green shade of his sweater matched the vertical stripe down the middle of his dark socks, which went from right under his shorts to his heels. Below that was nothing-- the pixels that should have formed his feet instead faded into nothing. 

     "A virus?" Yamato narrowed his eyes at the sprite and hovered the mouse over him. The man moved his head out of the way of the cursor and looked right at Yamato.
     

     "Pleased to meet you, too. I'm not a virus," he said, taking a seat on the task bar at the bottom of the screen. "My name is Yuki.”

     Yamato felt his chest tug in what he thought might be fear, but he pushed that feeling away to replace it with logic. In fact, it was a surprise he had never encountered a virus before, considering all the questionable websites he frequented. It was just his luck that the one he did catch was one with some strange high-tech advancements.
     

     “A virus with access to my mic? Kind of creepy.”

     “Not exactly a virus.”
     

     “If you say so.” Yamato clicked into his settings and turned the microphone input to OFF. He glanced back at the Yuki-virus to find him making direct eye contact, so he turned each application’s camera access to OFF as well. He smirked as he imagined the frustrated expression of the hacker realizing their target was clever enough to fight back.

     “Good luck talking back now,” Yamato said, huffing in triumph.

     But the Yuki-virus smiled, not breaking his gaze. “Nice try,” he said as he stood up, reached around the settings tab to the X button, and closed it. “But it’s my job to talk back."

     Yamato could feel his heart beating faster now, but he just grinned. “I gotta say, I’m impressed. How are you doing this?

     The Yuki-virus shook his head and leaned against the side of the inbox. “I can’t tell you that. Instead, let’s talk about why I’m here— Mitsuki."

     Yamato couldn’t hide the emotion in his eyes this time. He slammed his laptop shut, tossed it aside, and stood up. He walked into the kitchenette and opened the fridge with a shaky hand. There was a large empty spot on the shelf, and he cursed under his breath as he realized what this meant: he was out of beer. Instead, he opened the freezer and grabbed a pack of dumplings. He had to knock a few empty beer cans away so he could open the microwave.

     As he waited for his food to heat up, he stood with his arms crossed staring at the floor. It felt like his thoughts were tangling themselves up in knots. How does he know about that? Why would he bring him up? What does he mean, ‘why I’m here’? Was Mitsu secretly involved with some gang of elite hackers? Did he accidentally get on someone’s bad side and get tortured and blackmailed into—

The microwave beeped. He took out his dumplings and started eating. He tried to stuff some common sense back into himself as well. Mitsu wouldn’t be the type to hide something that serious. He’s too honest. It’s much more likely that the hacker found my name in my computer files and used it to make a background check so they could find personal information to use against me. I can’t show any signs that it’s getting to me; that’s what they want. I can figure out how to permanently delete the virus, for sure. It’s nothing to freak out about.

     Once he had finished eating and cleared his trash, he headed back to his bed and grabbed his phone. He opened the food delivery app, clicked on recently ordered items, and confirmed his order of three six-packs of beer. Sitting down on the edge of his bed, Yamato sighed. He locked his phone, then turned it back on to stare at the wallpaper. A young orange-haired man grinned and flashed a peace sign at the camera, his eyes squeezed shut and crinkled at the corners with a smile. Yamato sat beside him at the table, lounging back in the booth and holding a soda. He was looking at the man next to him with a soft smile. His cheerful expression made him almost unrecognizable compared to his present self.

     Then all of a sudden the two men’s faces were blocked by the palms and face of Yuki smushed up against the screen.

     “Shit,” Yamato said and dropped his phone on the floor. He was still for a moment before picking it back up. “You’re in here, too?”

     “I am. I’m sorry for surprising you,” Yuki said, amusement clear in his voice. The screen had turned back off, but Yuki was still there, now idly hovering in the middle of the darkness.

     “You didn’t,” Yamato snapped back. “I wanted to see if that would make you bounce off my screen back into cyberspace.”

     Yuki chuckled at that. “Of course.” He sat down on what seemed like nothing and crossed his legs. “Listen, Yamato. I’m here to help.” He snapped his fingers and vibrant green sparks flew from them. Similar sparks flickered like digital fireworks around the battery symbol in the upper right corner. The percentage grew from 5% to fully charged in  a second.

     Yamato said nothing. He just looked at Yuki, then his battery, then back at Yuki, who smiled.

     “Alright,” Yuki began, “time to get serious. I want to talk to you about your life, Yamato. It’s gotten to be very sad. You can’t live like this forever.”

     Yamato crossed his legs and laughed tensely. His gaze flickered around the room. “What is this, an intervention?”
“Yes, I suppose.” Yuki’s voice remained cool and steady. “Your behavior this past year has been worrying. I’d say you’re definitely depressed.”  

     “You don’t even know me. Don’t believe everything you read online,” Yamato retorted. Despite his efforts, he could hear his own voice faltering.

     Yuki shook his head. His expression was more serious now. “You hardly ever talk to your friends. You do all your shopping online so you never have to go outside. You work from home on your computer. You’re dependent on alcohol to the point where most of your time is spent either drunk or sleeping off  hangovers. And you’re stuck in the past because you can’t deal with the painful truth that Mitsuki is gone.”

     A heavy pressure pushed on Yamato’s chest and he choked down a sob. He fumbled to power off his phone and shoved it under his pillow. Then he took off his glasses, placed them on the ground, and laid down in bed with the covers pulled over his face. Although he wasn’t tired, he decided not to get up until he fell back asleep and avoided the waking world for another hour or two.

---

Yamato:
         I’m not here to lecture you into taking better care of yourself. You know, I’d shut myself in, too, if I were you. It’s a cruel world out there. So, I have a proposition I’d like you to consider.
         Join the virtual world with me. It may sound crazy, but it’s possible with my help. You can escape the monotony of your everyday life, and you’ll never have to worry about reality again. There’s no point in repeating the same things every day when you’re not enjoying them, so why not try something new?
         Call out my name when you’ve made up your mind.
Yuki

    After setting up this message to display once Yamato turned on his computer, Yuki laid on his back and sighed. He looked up at the distant zeros and ones in rows that looped and weaved around each other, repeating over and over further than he could see. The digits glowed brightly enough to illuminate the space with blue light. They surrounded him in every direction, but he knew they would fade away if he walked toward them, part for him like a sea made of binary code. There was no point in trying to escape, as there would be nothing beyond them. Until his task was done or he was given an alternate way out, he would remain adrift there.

---

    The next time Yamato decided to face his computer screen again was late that evening, after his beers had arrived and he had downed a few cans. Once he discovered the note left for him, he wasted no time in calling Yuki’s name. The way he dragged out the vowels made it sound more like five syllables, and by the time he got to the end, Yuki had already appeared. His eyes gleamed with hope.

    “Have you decided--”

     “Let me talk to you,” Yamato interrupted, waving his hand, “about Mitsu. You think, you think you know… shit about him. Nobody knew him like me. Nobody.”

     Yuki folded his arms across his chest as he watched Yamato. He felt compelled to demand a quick yes or no answer, but bit his tongue.
     

     “We’d known each other since we were teens,” Yamato said. “Went to school together. You see that paper airplane on my computer? My wallpaper? He made me those planes all the time. No, not for me. It was just, he’d throw them to me. In class when we got our tests back. He’d fold them and throw them at me. He didn’t do too well on those tests. Shit, I didn’t mean to say that.” 

     Yamato paused. “No, I can tell you. I mean, God, he was still so damn smart. Smartest person I ever knew. He was so bright. Brighter than the sun. And I never told him.” He put his head in his hands.

     Yuki opened his mouth, but Yamato started to speak again before he could get anything out. “I never told him how much he means to me. Maybe… If I had told him, maybe he wouldn’t have killed himself. Maybe he didn’t know how much he was loved.”

​

     “Hey,” Yuki cut in. “You said he was smart, right? I’m sure he knew.”

     Yamato stayed quiet.

     “Come with me and you can move past this. He wouldn’t want you to live in pain any longer.”

     There was no response for so long that Yuki started to think Yamato had fallen asleep sitting up. He was about to leave and come back later when Yamato sat up straight and lifted his head up.

     “Actually. Mitsu wouldn’t want me to… leave my life behind. He’d yell at me for that,” Yamato said, smiling a bit. “So I don’t think I’ll be doing-- I don’t think I’ll be taking you up on your offer. Thanks… but no thanks.” 

     He laid his head down on his desk and closed his eyes. “I’ll try a lil harder, for Mitsu…” he mumbled.

---

    The next day, the hum of cicadas greeted Yamato as he shut the door behind him. He pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt and put up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun’s glare.

    “Not too bad. I can make a quick trip to the marketplace, no problem,” he assured himself as he started walking. He glanced down at his phone and adjusted his earbuds to fit more snugly. “And I’ll think of ideas to get you freed on the way. I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”

“Hope so,” Yuki replied. He smiled at Yamato, and for the first time in a long time, Yamato smiled back.