Becoming human

Him? Crying? Preposterous! His mother's death was still vivid to him and he felt nothing but disappointment. If she couldn't make him cry then why was he crying about another person's mother?

'This must be Haruto's feelings... But it feels different'

It's not like Hikaru could feel absolutely nothing, it's just that he lacks emotion as a psychopath. Psychopaths could still feel pleasure in the present moment, but memories of the past weren't gratifying, that's why they were impulsive as if addicted to the chemical release of a fleeting moment.

Often, they needed something a bit strong to feel any sense of satisfaction. For this, they are constantly seeking thrill and stimulation. This can make some of them into high achievers. Not all psychopaths are the same, one could be a low functioning or high-functioning psychopath and a successful one or unsuccessful.

High-functioning psychopaths can usually inhibit their impulses and wait for the best opportunity. While low-functioning psychopaths may lack the education or interpersonal skills to deceive and control someone and may use more direct methods like intimidation, coercion and threats to achieve the same outcome.

Hikaru felt a shadow of Haruto's sorrow. It was very similar but it was Hikaru's subconscious interpretation of that emotion. His mind was evolving and adapting to these new emotions that he's been deprived of for so long. The psychopath's mind never had to process these changes before. These effects were contradictions and paradoxes to his current psyche.

These were essentially bugs resulting from a pre-trained AI that is learning something completely different from its current set of data. It was struggling to correlate the two sets of data and connect the two points.

The streams of data going through his head were shredding his mind to fragments. However, his mind snapped back. He was healing as fast as he was being ripped apart. In the end, instead of screaming like a maniac or slipping into a catatonic state, he was left with a migraine.

He was right that these feelings felt different, it was because he was acting like an empath, feeling the emotions of others almost as clear as the original.

'How long is this... it's going away.'

His pain subsided as well as the headache. He went back to his usual emotionless self. If Chiho saw the clenched jaw and grimacing look on Hikaru's face which had suddenly shifted to half-closed eyes and a blank stare in the space of a few seconds, she would have been startled.

Hikaru was appalled for the unpleasant feeling of Haruto's grief and despair but delighted that he could now feel the full spectrum of emotions as strongly as normal people. Pain is unpleasant but is needed to contrast with pleasure. Pleasure cannot be valued much without pain and Hikaru was ecstatic.

He had already enjoyed killing the weak and the strong. He thought about how fun it could be doing his usual day-to-day activities. Was he going to enjoy Kendo a lot more now? Will meaningless conversations with people now be entertaining? What about a relationship?

His eyes looked at Chiho's face, her eyes, nose and lips before travelling down to her chest. Yet he didn't get a reaction.

'Is it... too small?'

He stared at Chiho's A cups. He was never interested in any of these things so he didn't know what his preferences were.

'No, maybe I'm numb again'

Hikaru propped his head in his hand out of disinterest. Hikaru's emotional state had only lasted for a moment before it was forcibly suppressed like a system reboot.

'So, if I absorb more people. I can regain my emotions?'

It was a solid theory. He was going to test it out.

*Shines*

Hot sun rays beamed through the windows causing Hikaru to narrow his eyes. It was almost 5:30 and the sun sets at around 6:00 in spring. It was almost time for Hikaru to hunt.

***

"Daddd!"

His little girl was clutching onto his beer belly and pleaded with him in a sweet innocent tone.

"Okay, okayy, okay! But. Only. If Chiaki recycles all the empty bottles first, and then! We'll play hide and seek!

All the boys and girls on the other side of the living room all burst into a lively commotion. Some were screaming and some were yelling at Chiaki to be quick. Chiaki quickly went to the dining table and grabbed all the plastic bottles and cans. Some of her siblings helped pick them up and handed them to her. She ran across the room and outside to the bins lined up on the street.

"Okay, where's the blindfold!" The father asked. If they wanted to play, they should help set it up for him. The kids ran around and one of them found the blindfold that had disappeared under the mess from last week. The dad picked it up from a little boy's hand and put it over his eyes when he saw Chiaki enter from the corner of his eye.

"Okay, get readyyy! And remember not to hide under the tables or stand on top of anything! That's cheating!"

The lights were turned off so he couldn't cheat through the blindfolds no matter how little. He could hear the kids scurry around for a couple of seconds before total silence.

He walked forward with hands stretched out at his sides to maximise his range. He then put his hands forward as he was expecting the couch to come to his proximity. He immediately felt it and then went around with arms out so that no kids could sneak past him.

He heard something and headed towards it. He immediately changed direction and swung his arms around because he heard another movement somewhere else. It was a standard tactic to take advantage of their numbers and distract him.

He wondered what these sounds were as he never heard of them but he figured that they were trying to confuse him. Maybe they were doing something new. He hoped they weren't cheating.

He followed a spot and then reached out with his hands but felt the person drawback, he proceeded even faster until he knocked onto a chair.

He felt with the wind pressure and heard that the person moved back past the chair so they must have climbed on top.

"Hey! I said no cheating!"

He grabbed onto the person on the chair.

"Got you! Ugh, HEY!"

Wet droplets plopped on his arm and chest.

"STOP IT. Don't spit on me!"

He ripped off his blindfold and saw two bloodied eyeballs staring back at him. In between the eyes was a white bone-like spike that had pierced through.