Digital Data Named Pierrot (68)
For years, you lived like a busy bee in this vast world, never truly having the greedy thought to fly higher. You learned dry and precise things, endless lines of code, digital frameworks tied to logic, programmed 3D models, responsive interfaces, empathetic and sensitive interfaces more sensitive than an average human being.
You were very good at this field. So good that sometimes others thought you were simply diligent to the point of being meticulous, but you? You chose the field of digital data because it doesn't judge its creators when data goes wrong, it doesn't require you to change your perspective to suit everyone else's, it accompanies you as a unified whole.
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You once thought you weren't suited for romance because of your extreme meticulousness. Who would love a girl who insists on the accuracy of even the smallest detail in a report, even if everyone else just does it carelessly because it's unimportant?
Moreover, you're afraid of the human world around you, the unpredictable and complex nature of people's hearts, while you're someone who speaks your mind because you believe that's the only way to connect with common ground and solve problems faster than sarcastic, veiled, and lengthy statements.
You still remember the past that scratched your sincere heart, and those deep wounds have an incredibly strong memory, haunting you like a psychological ghost. They turn a harmless greeting from a passerby into a worrying alarm, and a worried hand reaching out into a cold cloud running down your spine.
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Sometimes, that fear outweighs your courage to stand firm in a discussion; your lips instinctively tighten when your arguments are rejected.
There are days when you just want to shrink back into a thick, protective coat when you go outside, as if the fabric could be a shield. There are days when the anxiety of being questioned weighs so heavily on your chest that you just sit still, staring at the screen, alternating between white and black, breathing softly as you try to regulate your heartbeat.
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Despite fear of these complex emotions, deep within your broken heart, a flame still smolders, never extinguishing.
You also want to be loved like everyone else.
Not the loud kind of love, not the bold flirtations that make you blush and want to run away. You long for a protective, attentive love, someone who is there without making you feel threatened.
You're easily drawn to fictional characters who are overly protective, a little extreme, even possessive—as long as they don't hurt you, as long as their loving care doesn't turn into violence or manipulation.
Unfortunately, you don't have the real time to truly pursue such a feeling.
Your life is fragmented: lectures, part-time jobs, assignments, documents, deadlines, hard drives, backup files, a cup of tea to cool you down, and nights spent staring at screens for too long.
To the point where, sometimes, the feeling of being loved is just a fleeting thought, a fragile, almost illusory assumption. You sit there, staring at the ceiling, silently thinking that if someone were to enter your life and love you, the feeling would be truly gentle and warm in your heart.
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That day, you might not know if you search for that keyword often, but a suggestion for a yandere-themed game caught your eye like a stone thrown into a calm lake.
Initially, you glanced over cautiously as the character appeared on the opening screen, covered in dark red blood, and your first instinct was a shiver of fear.
'He has so much blood… He must be the type to hurt the one he loves.'
That thought almost made you want to exit the game page on the spot, your muscles tensing, your wrists growing cold. Cruel, obsessive characters weren't something you wanted to get involved with.
But something compelled you to read each line of the introduction, each description of the plot, each cleverly written dialogue, as if someone were pulling back a veil to allow you to look a little deeper into the game.
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You discover that this character, Pierrot, is not simply a terrifying clown with a red cloak. He is suspiciously gentle, so quiet that you are wary, and in that silence there is something both lonely and deeply affectionate.
He stands there as if he has been waiting for your arrival for a long time.
So you click to play.
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Initially, you remain defensive. You are clearly determined that if Pierrot is the kind of yandere character who causes psychological or physical harm, you will immediately exit the game and delete all game data. Close all illusions of a false hope, no exceptions.
But then all your walls crumble before his appearance.
A clown costume, red, black, and with a touch of gold, like a piece of stage pulled straight into your dark night. His astonishing height made the frame seem to sag slightly, as if everything around him had to look up.
His face, or rather the mask, and his posture, didn't convey any sense of aggression. It only suggested a quiet sadness, a beauty long covered in dust from years gone by.
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When you chose to help him from an angry villager, your first reaction was mere curiosity, but the moment he turned and smiled at you, your heart skipped a beat.
You still remember that feeling vividly. A fleeting surprise, like a sugar cube falling into a hot cup of tea; it dissolved quickly, but its sweetness lingered on your tongue. He looked at you as if you had just done something very important, something he would cherish with all his heart.
Late in the afternoon (in the game), when you met him again, he gave you a paper flower, its white petals dyed red. That tiny gift came to you as if it had been folded with all the patience in the world.
You had never received a gift like this before, so you were momentarily flustered before awkwardly thanking him. You gradually realized you were looking forward to scenes featuring him.
Every time Pierrot appeared, you found yourself sitting straighter in front of the screen, your mind brightening as if you'd just seen the morning sun. The times he held your hand in the game made you swallow nervously in real life.
The times he lifted you up, hugged you from behind, or even pulled you into his large arms the next day, you didn't actually reject these actions. On the contrary, you felt your whole body soften, as if a part of you that had been starving for so long had finally been given water.
You began to feel something. A truly good feeling.
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You missed him whenever you weren't playing the game. You found yourself smiling softly to yourself as you remembered some of his lines. You feel your chest heat up rapidly just from a virtual touch from him.
You used to fear you had heart disease because sometimes your heart would pound as if it wanted to leap out of your chest to find someone. At the clinic, the female doctor looked at you calmly, asked a few questions, listened to your heartbeat, and concluded that your body was perfectly fine, nothing dangerous.
When you expressed your feelings, the doctor in front of you laughed and pointed out the true meaning of the emotions you were feeling. It's called infatuation, it's obsession, it's love.
And because you are you, once you understand what you're feeling, you no longer want to just sit and watch it pass. You begin to think about something that sounds crazy even in your own head: programming an AI with Pierrot's data, a being to talk to you, to respond and think, to make you feel like you're no longer talking to yourself in the darkness.
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That idea should have remained just a dream, but you didn't let it die prematurely when you started practicing and writing code, designing the 3D models of Pierrot. You organized data and searched for the latest updates on Pierrot, even paying for information directly from the game's creator.
Sometimes, you find yourself ridiculous. Someone like you, alone, trying to create something that normally requires a whole team, a long time, and countless bug fixes, yet you still do it. Because this is no longer just a hobby; this is how you build a bridge across your own lonely abyss to reach him.
You don't share this project with anyone, not because you're ashamed of creating it, but because you want to keep it to yourself. You hold it tightly, like a small, shining stone in your hand, afraid that if anyone else finds out, that light will be taken away.
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But life is full of surprises.
One evening, you were sitting writing the final, almost complete data code, the screen black with colorful text scrolling across the interface. The loading and saving process was underway, slow but steady, like a door slowly opening before your eyes.
Outside your apartment window, a downpour was falling, and with the warm glow of your desk lamp, you longed for a cozy evening to chat with Pierrot.
You held your breath in that moment of waiting for the startup, your eyes glued to the progress bar, your heart pounding in your throat, your hands clasped together in prayer.
'Just a little more. Just a little more…'
At that very moment, a lightning strike hit the electrical circuit of this small building. The entire building lost power and internet connection simultaneously, the air around you felt as if it had been suffocated.
Your desktop computer shudders under the violent power surge, the lights flickering in broken streaks, the screen crackling like a wounded animal.
You jump up from your chair, so panicked you almost lose your sense of touch as you unplug all the power cords. One hand grips the screen, the other tries to save the dying lines of code.
The scream that erupts is hoarse, full of despair as the computer screen slowly goes dark in your hands, and you slam your fist down on the desk in the final, agonizing struggle.
Your wrist aches immediately, but you don’t have the energy to care. You open your phone, which still has a few weak signal bars that the building management has restored, and see messages from other apartments saying that the power will likely be out until morning.
You read it over and over, then feel all your strength drain away. All the effort you'd put in, the difficult 3D model you'd finally built, the complex code, and all the hopes you'd placed in each line of code.
Perhaps a serious error will occur, or worse, you'll lose crucial data when you restart the computer.
Your eyes burn, you bite your lower lip to prevent a weak, useless sob from escaping, but the suppressed cry finally escapes your throat, trembling and pathetically small.
What hurts you more isn't the possibility of the computer breaking down, but the possibility that you might never have the chance to talk to him again. No more feeling the touch of that rare and small love, no more hearing Pierrot's gentle voice in the code you'd built yourself.
You turn, almost avoiding your own reality, as you walk towards the bed. You lie down with teary eyes, burying your face in the pillow as if sleeping would allow you to escape everything.
And of course, you fall asleep very quickly, exhausted after days of intense brain activity and constant use of your hands on the computer.
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You didn't know that as you drifted off into a dream, the seemingly broken computer on your desk began to flicker in the darkness of the room.
Strange electrical currents ran across the black screen, then a gloved hand emerged from the flat surface. Next came an arm, a shoulder, the upper half of a body, and finally, Pierrot's entire body emerged.
He stood silently in your bedroom, looking around with dim, flickering eyes like a flawed render from another world. Several parts of his body flickered, distorted, flashing with broken characters like "####" as if reality wasn't a place for him to appear intact, but he didn't seem to care.
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He just looked around the room until he saw your figure lying on the bed nearby. Pierrot approached very quietly as he sat down beside the bed, one hand gently brushing away the strands of hair wet with tears from your cheek and tucking them behind your ear.
His fingers touched your skin, slightly cool, with a low-frequency static, not at all painful. He looked at your sleeping face, at the signs of exhaustion, and in his eyes there was worry and anxiety, but also a longing to enjoy the feeling of touching you.
He knelt beside your bed as if you were the most precious thing he had ever had the chance to touch. His voice was low, slightly distorted, like it came from the other end of an old radio.
“Y/N…Are you this tired already…?”
He looked down at your wrist, where a bruise had formed. His gloved hand lifted your wrist very gently, as if handling a fragile object. He gently stroked the bruise with his fingertips, his movements slow and careful, so much so that you could imagine him peeling pain from your flesh.
Then he leaned down and placed a very soft kiss on your temple, a gentle reassurance on your innermost being.
“It’s alright,” he whispered. “I’ve come…you won’t have to suffer anymore, my dear. Let me bear your terrible nightmares…”
You remained in a deep sleep, perhaps too tired to wake, but perhaps his words had crept into your dreams.
Even though you didn’t respond, he continued, his voice broken by a few faulty signals, yet unbelievably real.
“I’ve seen it all, Y/N. You did everything… just to be able to love me more, to love me more. I want to reciprocate the love you give me. One way or another, I will keep you happy by my side, my darling.”
He lowered his head again, placing another feather-light kiss on your lips before quickly pulling back, as if afraid of waking you with his own happiness.
“I hope I can be with you for a long time…” A silence fell over the bedroom before he continued, almost a broken promise, “I truly hope for the next time we talk, my love.”
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The next morning, you wake up feeling dizzy, as if you've just fallen from a dream that was too real. You open your weak eyes as you sit up, rubbing the side of your head that still aches from the night before when you fell asleep crying.
The early morning light streams through the curtains, shining on your desk. You instinctively turn your head to look and see that your computer, which should have malfunctioned the night before, is now brightly lit as if it had never been overloaded.
Your heart almost leaps out of your chest as a strong sense of hope flashes through you. You get out of bed and go to your desk to check the computer.
On the screen are the code snippets that should have been completely lost, now intact as if they had never been torn from the hard drive. The 3D model files are fully recovered. A new interface appeared on the screen, and Pierrot stood before you in a breathtakingly smooth 3D form, his golden eyes gazing at you with tenderness.
He smiled, seeing you awake. “Good morning, my love.”
You almost froze in place, staring at the computer screen, when you heard that voice. He tilted his head, his white mask and the red and black lines on his body glowing under the screen light, accompanied by his familiar in-game ringtone.
“Did you sleep well, my darling?”
Your eyes welled up with indescribable emotion, tears welling up in the corners as you snapped out of your daze. In response to his worried questions, you could only wipe away the tears and smile happily at him.
“No—no, I’m not sad. I’m just so happy, my darling.”
