#paragraph gaps)

[emero0]

Its finally time...I'm posting a fanfic (kinda) I wrote it for a final, so if the pacings off and theres details missing its mainly because I had a small word count limit :') Anyway! with that said, I present (part of) my unit swap au, maybe an au of an au depending on how you interpret part of it :) (read:varying degrees of angst)

Affectionately named "The Arcade, Social Disconnect" in my google doc, but i gave it another title for my assignment :) its Rui focused btw :3c, 500ish words

The Purple Hyacinth and the “Machine”

He’s not sure what drew him back—the faintly buzzing lights, or the guilt of leaving too soon, leaving a job unfinished—but he needs to fix the machines again. They’ve gone so long without being properly cared for, working without any rest, drained from people using them constantly. Rui gets out his tool box, and one by one starts to work on the machines. The owner, thankfully, turned off the machines before leaving, which meant Rui could properly fix the smashed buttons and glitching screens, though he’d have to turn those machines on to see if his adjustments would work. After a while, he glances at the clock, “1 a.m.,” he thinks to himself, “Ah, I really have stayed up late,” He lets out a dry chuckle, “Just like old times.” 

Rui picks up his tools to go to the next machine, but before he can, a noise comes from behind him. “Please insert coins. Please insert coins. Please-” The broken machine keeps repeating the phrase as he sighs and walks closer, “Just a glitch,” Rui tells himself. He moves over to the machine, and the voice feels piercing. His face scrunches up at the shrill command. “Please insert coins,” it says, and for a moment he considers it, before the phrase changes, and louder and more distorted he hears it speak. 

“Please, inster- PLease in-, pleasE.” the voice cries. 

“plEaSe. Please. PLEase.” She’s stuttering, and he takes a step back but his vision is getting blurry.

“PLEAse. PLEASe.” 

“PLEASE!”

A lightbulb shatters somewhere. The room goes dark. 

Other lights flicker distantly before going dark too, the silence only interrupted by the faint sound of cars in the distance. He’s shaking, and when did he get on the floor? He looks up at the machine, or where he figures it is in the dark and through his blurry vision, but all he sees are dirty fingerprints on the screen and the game turned off, just as it was when he first arrived. 

He takes a couple deep breaths, before lifting himself off the floor and grabbing his toolbox, and grabbing the flashlight he keeps for emergencies, lighting up the room again, faintly. 

It takes him twice as long to fix the remaining machines, with his hands still shaking from the incident. “I really need to start sleeping more,” he thinks. He grabs a wet wipe, and makes his way around the arcade, cleaning the buttons and mainly, the fingerprints on the screens. “Why can’t people at least have the respect not to touch the screens, these aren’t touchscreens.” He mumbles to himself, harshly rubbing at the screen of the machine from earlier. “These damn fingerprints won’t come off.”

Rui leans closer to inspect the prints. “The lines look interesting,” he thinks, “It's like they’re-” His body goes stiff, and his breathing picks up as he rushes to grab his tools and run as far away as he can from that rotting arcade. 

The fingerprints on the screen were reversed.

The fingerprints were from the other side.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

the end :) for now…

If you wanna see more of my vague concepts for this au search my page for “social/discønnect” or “resekai/reset sekai” for more (tho i gotta make sure all my stuffs tagged right haha…ha..oof, i’ll update this when i figure that out>)) (and also tbis aus technically co-created with my twin shoutout to them>)(the whole swap au as a whole anyway, social disconnect are my children <3 lol)

I’m thinkin i wanna go back to this concept again so past stuff might be reworked a bit, but it should be fun ^_^ (i might lean more into au stuff depending on how much i feel like referencing canon content TvT like backstories n stuff, we’ll see…)