This fic spoils several plot points within the game AI: The Somnium Files. As such, SPOILERS WILL REMAIN UNMARKED! It is recommended that you have played the game before reading. You have been warned.
"I always loved fireworks. [...] They were beautiful. A dazzling explosion of light that faded into chaos. A momentary flash in time. Something about its impermanence made it more stunning. It was the closest I ever felt to feeling something. And it reminded me of what I lacked."
I Always Loved Fireworks is an AI: The Somnium Files fic based on the backstory of the Cyclops Killer, Saito Sejima, and how he became the murder-obsessed person he became in the game. It starts with his childhood and comes up to the first murder of the game. In the story, we follow his struggles to attempt to be normal and his desire to find something that doesn't make him feel empty. It only gets worse when he finds out how causing death feels with his own hands.
It can be read on Archive of Our Own HERE
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Tropes included in the story:
- Adaptational Jerkass: There is no indication in the game that Saito was ever a misogynist.
- Arc Words: Fireworks. Saito uses them as a metaphor for how killing makes him feel.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Saito's first victims were animals before moving up to people. He killed small animals to gain the spark he thought he was missing. His father got him a hunting license to keep his urges at bay until he killed people again.
- Bleed 'Em and Weep: This happens to Saito when he gets to a brain that can process empathy. He tries to kill while in Shoko's body, but every time, it only hurts him emotionally. He can barely bring himself to kill a mouse, the first thing he ever killed.
- Character Tics: How Rohan and Saito identify each other when they meet each other in prison as #89 and Shoko respectively. Saito often wiggles his fingers out of habit, and Rohan has a particular way of shrugging that Saito notices immediately.
- Despair Event Horizon: As Saito starts realizing that he can now feel guilt and empathy, he starts freaking out about not being able to feel good about killing people. After trying to kill smaller and smaller things, he is finally broken when he can't even kill a mouse without feeling guilty. It causes him to contemplate suicide since he'd never be able to feel that rush again.
- Double-Meaning Title: Each of the three chapters represents how Saito perceived that part of his life.
- Purgatory: When he was an Empty Shell and never felt anything, stuck in a feeling of nothingness.
- Heaven: When he finally finds something that gives him some kind of joy (that being killing).
- Hell: When he realizes that he no longer has the happiness he gets from killing and it only makes him miserable.
- Empty Shell: Saito's life always felt bland and colorless. He felt he was just a dead person walking before he found that murder could bring him more life. The reason he kills is to keep the emptiness he feels at bay.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: This is what throws Saito off when he starts to understand it. He freaks out when he realizes that most people don't enjoy killing.
- Gone Horribly Right: Saito wanted to be able to feel emotions like everyone else when he was a kid. He finally got that... and it's at a point where he only wants to kill. Now that he understands empathy, he wonders why he ever wanted this in the first place.
- Hates Small Talk: Saito points this out when Rohan tries to engage in it on two occasions.
- He-Man Woman Hater: Saito is described as misogynistic in this fic, using many slurs against women with most of his victims being female as well. It seems to come from his father using women as objects and then shunting them away.
- High on Homicide: Killing is essentially a drug to Saito, and he needs to keep getting bigger kills to keep the rush up.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: How Saito starts off. He doesn't like feeling empty all the time and wants to figure out how other people manage to feel things. He does his best to appear normal, but he always had slipups that gave him away and alienated him further. That desire was cast away when he discovered the joy of killing.
- It's All About Me: Justified with Saito's difficulties empathizing with others. Saito never considers anyone else's feelings other than his own. Even before he was a murderer, his thoughts were always about how he was suffering from being an Empty Shell. He didn't care about people getting hurt and was frustrated when people ostracized him for not understanding social cues. When So mentions that covering up his crimes is getting too costly, he blows it off by saying he doesn't see why that's his problem. His partnership with Rohan is only because he wants to kill more. He doesn't care about Rohan's desires in this deal.
- Never My Fault: Once he gets his memories back and realizes he can't feel happy from murder, Saito starts thinking that Date stole his body rather than him forcing Date to use the psync machine without thinking about what would happen. He even tries to make it seem like Date was trying to steal Rohan's body as well to fit into his victim narrative.
- No Love for the Wicked: Not only does Saito have no capacity for romance or love thanks to his condition, but he also states that he doesn't really like sex either. He says he tried it, but it never was the same as murder.
- Parental Neglect: Not only does So not care about his son in favor of his mistresses and his political career, but he also dismisses the doctors that warn him about Saito's condition. He immediately rejects the idea that there is a problem and does nothing to mitigate it, leading Saito to turn to murder.
- Really Gets Around: So had several mistresses outside of Manaka.
- Sanity Slippage: Saito starts as merely an Empty Shell with a desire to be like others and have emotions. When he kills for the first time, he begins his descent into becoming a sadistic murder-addict.
- Serial Killer: Saito killed people before joining Rohan to become the Cyclops Killer.
- The Sociopath: Like in the game, Saito doesn't feel any positive emotions like love, joy, or empathy thanks to his brain dysfunction. This caused him not to understand others when he was younger. The only thing sustaining him is a need for stimulation to keep him from feeling empty all the time, which factors into making some impulsive decisions. He is noted to be charming enough to lure in victims with his good looks. He shows a blatant disregard for the concerns of others (i.e., not caring about So's protests after covering for him proves to be too costly). Once he gets into a brain that can process empathy and guilt, he is overwhelmed and distraught by it and wants to get his own body back as soon as possible.
- Stalker without a Crush: As Shoko, Saito spent plenty of watching Date to figure out who the people he cared about most were so he could kill them.
- There Are No Therapists: Double subverted. While Saito is referred to psychologists to understand his condition, his father does nothing to follow up with them and left his son's condition alone, leading to him finding joy in murder.
- Title Drop: During the first chapter where Saito talks about So taking him to a New Year's festival.
- Villain Protagonist: This is a story from the perspective of Saito Sejima and follows his life.
- Villainous Friendship: Saito and Rohan always got along with their shared taste for violence. While Saito didn't particularly care about him, they were still on somewhat cordial terms.
