FNF Senpai X Reader || Corrupted Code

Chapter 19: Protect Me from What I Want

(As I am lazy, art is by me from a year ago because e-boy Senpai was hilarious in my monkey brain. The art is to distract you from the fact that this chapter is the last and very sad. I'm posting this an hour before my graduation ceremony)

"I missed you, too, Senpai." Your monotonous response was usually something that made him happy enough to not get furious at you and ask why you don't adore him anymore, why you aren't responding how you used to. A part of you wondered if that would be the possibility today, or, if he'll get even more upset with you.

Much to your pleasure — and most plausible dismay — Senpai let out a sigh of consolation and bent his body forwards as his arms dangled down your shoulders and wrapped around your neck, his elbows just barely touching the end of your clavicles. One of his gangly hands knotted themselves within your hair. You highly questioned whether he was going to be able to pull his hand out effortlessly if he keeps it in there. That was such a cute sentiment. It could have been a bonding moment between partners but it was reduced to this. A part of yourself still feels that you are to blame and no matter how hard you try to force those thoughts aside, they do occupy your brain and shatter your skull.

Your reflection in the monitor shows a few things: your face, and what little of Senpai that showed. It was always so unusual that his reflections would glitch. Almost as if he wasn't meant to exist. Your reflection was one you came to hate, the face that stared back at you was not the person you knew you were. This person was lonely cowardly and stupid. All of the things that you desperately tried to be, but maybe that was who you were always meant to be. Maybe Senpai just brought out the worst in you. What a joke that would be... You honestly were moronic when he begged to be set free.

What virus would ask for something so stupid and mundane, anyways? It's a rhetoric question. You did not want the answer.

"You're spacing out again, (Y/N)," his gentle voice pulled you out of your thoughts, "you've been doing that a lot lately. I wonder, are you okay?" His fingers tangled within your hair, teasing the soft locks that adorned your head. "You've been such a domestic lover, I love you. You deserve a reward for how far you've come." Your head perked up at the mention of a reward, and you turned your head to look over at the strawberry blonde. "That's right, a reward. Look at you," his hand fell to your face, thumb gently caressing your cheek as you stared up at him with that same expression that you always had.

There will constantly be days when you blame nobody but yourself. Perhaps if you had a better recollection of your life before this point, you would have had regrets. Maybe you would have regretted everything that you had ever done, or maybe you wouldn't. Time fogged your memory, as did the feeling of remorse and hatred. The person you used to be was nothing more than a thought, a distant memory that would eventually be forgotten if you didn't hold onto it tightly. Faintly, the thought of the past made you feel giddy. Happy.

Until the crushing realisation of your current situation infested your mind.

The one person who remained, the one person who professed that you were his everything, that you were nothing without him. The man behind all your mental turmoil and hazy memory. The faces that you remember, they all seemed distant from you. Always replaced with the face of a man who caused you all this pain. Maybe you should have been smarter with your choices, maybe if you had accepted him earlier on, this wouldn't have happened.

And yet, the very thought of leaving him or him leaving you left you breathless and clinging to any sign that he wouldn't. You felt codependent like he was your everything. And he was. Nobody else was there to aid you in your suffering, nobody was by your side to help you out of your situation. Right, right, you had nobody to blame but yourself. That's what he told you. You knew it was all lies, right? There was something inside you that begged for it to be the truth. To just set aside the fighting and accept that things won't always be as good as you wish for them to be.

A thought simmered inside your brain.

Senpai never hung around near electronics for long. Hell, you would even go as far as to say that he loathed them. He refused to accept a phone, abhorred walking near your television, and even stayed a distance from your computer. That begs the question of why? Why would he stay away from electronics who cannot do anything to his existence? He looks and feels human, but is he fully human? Is he... still a program pretending to be a loving and surviving human? It would clarify so much to the degree where you wholeheartedly speculated it to be the truth at the moment. But his hands, his hands touching you felt so natural, his laughter and his personality felt real. Not at all like a programmed AI just filling through his objective.

"Senpai," you shakily inquired, craning your head to the side in order to confront the strawberry-blonde. "Is there a rationale you don't like to stay around electronics? I already told you that you could have a phone to-" you shakily inhaled, swallowing the forming lump in your throat, "to maintain an eye on me and make sure I'm safe." Senpai didn't respond for a juncture, and you felt your chest drop as the thought of him getting angry crossed your mind again. Your heart was most likely deep within your bowels at this point.

However, you heard him just sigh and chortle breathlessly. "You adore to implore questions," one of his hands slid down your shoulders to one of your hands which sat in your lap. Senpai interweaved your fingers together and pulled your hand up, his blunt fingernails digging into your knuckles nearly painfully. "They hurt me." Is what he whispered.

His hand got closer to the screen, bringing yours with it. The screen suddenly turned on to a blank network, static filling the chasm in your ears and rattling your brain. But, it was unbearable. There appeared to be some sort of ambience encircling Senpai's hand the closer it got to the screen, and that was when the realization unexpectedly strikes you. He couldn't be around electronics because they would drag him back inside the game. It all made so much sense now, how could you be so blind?

Shakily, you gawked at his hand, then back to his scowling face, and a sigh evaded you. Your other hand set on your desk and you sought to hoist yourself up to force Senpai in your place. His midriff thrust against the edge of the desk, a cry escaping him as he demanded to know what you were doing. You yanked your hand away from his before he could pull you forward, and you pressed against his body to the point where he was bent over the desk. You were trembling. You were terrified.

"(Y/N)?!? Do you know what the fuck you're doing? Get off me! You're going to hurt us both!" His voice rang distorted at this point, but you didn't care. With a harsh shove, he began to stumble inside the monitor. "No, no, no! Stop! Please, pull me out, I don't want to go back there! You- you can't make me go back! You wouldn't do that to me! (Y/N), please. I love you!" His words caused a moment's reluctance, but he was already being jerked into the monitor and it was too late. "Why would you do this to me? I thought you loved me. What did I do wrong? Please, don't let me rot in here." His last statements tugged at your heartstrings, a rueful outcry tugging itself from your throat. Why did you feel so guilty?

"I'm sorry, Senpai. I'm so, so sorry that you're like this. This was the only thing I could do to protect myself." It was barely above a murmur, but you couldn't muster anything else without fully breaking down. You ogled at the screen, dumbfounded and shivering. The screen shut down, and Senpai's voice was nothing more than a distant thought in your mind.

You felt... at peace.

With a sigh, you fell back on your chair and gazed at the reflection that glared back at you. This time, you were optimistic to say that this person was you. The person that stood up for themselves, the person who was able to escape a toxic situation. The person who was finally free. You just needed to throw away the disk and destroy it before this predicament ever happened again.

Though, a thought lingered. How were you going to go back to your job to pay your bills? Senpai was, undoubtedly, committing tax fraud and identity theft which now left you with not much. Nobody would ever believe you that a crazed dating simulator character came to life and made your life a living hell for a year. A part of you still wished that you hadn't done that. You felt terrible.

Regardless, when you began to hoist yourself up off the seat, the monitor unexpectedly activated with white noise filling your eardrums once more as a familiar hand lunged from the screen.