Unique to this story: Hints of racism/antisemitism.
Fog sneaked among masts and rigging, pier supports and walls, hats and umbrellas and even legs, very much as the African mists had sometimes done among the mighty trees and world of dangling vines and the subsequently obscure items of their own camp three years before. Each did unforgivable things to her hair, but whereas in Africa she’d been free to keep her pith helmet on as long as she felt the need — and beyond that hadn’t exactly had any social engagements — here the drooping locks that never failed to get down into her eyes would be visible not only to every passerby on the street, but also to the delegate she hoped to impress.
Beyond that, the fog chilled her to the bone despite the layers she’d donned against it, while the African mists had been a pleasant contrast to the hot equatorial atmosphere. She adjusted her hat, took a firmer grip on her closed umbrella, and pressed her unoccupied hand into a coat pocket. The crinkle from within as glove closed on paper acted as a sort of warmth, anyway.
She’d lost count, in recent days, of how many letters she’d received beginning with some approximation of, My dear Miss Porter, though I have the utmost respect for the scientific achievements of your eminent father, it is with deepest regret I must inform you… Just to have one that started differently, however desirable its proposal might or might not turn out, had lit a fire of hope in her breast as nothing else had during these increasingly bad years.
She would not, she believed, have received so many denials of her request for sponsorship if she could have said — or even in good conscience implied — that her father would once again be heading the proposed expedition. But his health had grown poor enough of late that she didn’t want him to risk the long voyage, even back to an area she believed had been especially salubrious for him, until she was certain it would be a one-way trip. And how could she know that without making a preliminary survey herself? How could she dare believe in the possibility? Was it within her conscience?
In any case, even with suffragettes becoming increasingly vocal in England and elsewhere, scientific expeditions headed by single young women did not raise much confidence — or money — with the various stodgy men of the Royal Society, or even the BA. And there was another reason the letter in her pocket warmed her heart: it was signed by a woman.
Though relatively uninitiated in the functionality and visual design of sailing ships, with or without supplemental steam engines, Jane believed the one to which she’d been invited today had a subtly affluent and dignified look while also appearing sturdy and practical. Her green and purple paint was subdued, and the carved crocus that formed her figurehead was a subtle rather than a glittering gold that didn’t immediately draw the eye. For her own part, Jane preferred bright colors, but for the conveyance of a delegation from a small norther country, this seemed properly unobtrusive.
The gangway stood extended and ready for her, and a figure, appearance blurred in the fog, waited at the top. As Jane climbed the oblique walk and kept her eyes steadily forward and upward, she took in more and more details: the stranger was a plump, fit-looking woman in her forties wearing a braided crown of red hair striped with grey and one prominent patch of pure white. This tight coiffure, along with her modish green coat over a short split skirt and neat tall boots, suggested an active person and an active function in the delegation.
The woman held out a hand as Jane drew near, and her pleasant face seemed to take the edge from the air around them with a welcoming smile and the wrinkled pattern of many such gone by beside her eyes. And there was something in those eyes — medium blue with just the slightest touch of green, the passion and energy behind them increasingly visible as Jane drew up to her — that thoroughly and abruptly engrossed her.
Jane had always been easily distracted. It wasn’t that she hadn’t spent her entire childhood taking lessons, tacit and overt, in proper behavior and social consciousness; it was just that as soon as she encountered something that grabbed her interest, she forgot herself. Staring silently between the delegate’s dark lashes, standing stupidly still without taking the last step off the gangplank, not reaching out to shake the offered hand, was patently rude, but so caught up was Jane in the seeming familiarity, the almost enchanting familiarity of those eyes that she didn’t even recognize the extent to which she’d lost her head until the woman spoke.
“You must be Jane Porter.” The delegate took that last step forward in Jane’s place and reached out. She did perhaps appear a little curious as to what had stopped her visitor so short, but only added, “I’m Anna of Arendelle,” as she shook Jane’s hand.
“Oh! Oh, yes, of course, good morning.” Fidgeting in response to her own behavior, Jane brushed a strand of damp hair out of her face, pushed her hat up by half an inch, and released both Anna’s hand and Anna’s eyes seconds too late to avoid awkwardness. “We’ve corresponded. I’m very happy to make your acquaintance.”
“I’m so glad you were able to come on such short notice,” Anna replied, taking Jane’s elbow and leading her onto the ship and across the foggy deck. “Though I guess it wasn’t such short notice for you, since you were already looking for a sponsor, but since we only determined on this voyage a few weeks ago, it seemed like a miracle when we came across your name. Come inside!”
Jane smiled to find her new acquaintance so chatty already, and allowed herself to be led out of the greater chill of the morning. “It seems we may be able to help each other,” she agreed as they went.
Inside, under a low ceiling in what nevertheless appeared a relatively comfortable cabin — the captain’s, perhaps — two more women sat behind a table covered in charts, with a man standing straight-spined nearby, his grizzled head brushing the beam just above him. Anna moved forward after closing the door behind them, gestured at the central figure, and said, “May I present Queen Elsa of Arendelle.”
Jane nearly choked. She’d taken a confident step or two behind Anna on entry, but halted as if on a sixpence at these words and gaped. Any other potential source of distracting interest — and she felt immediately there might be one or two before her — immediately slipped her mind, but that didn’t stop her from gawking at the indicated woman for at least one impolite second.
Not one tiny hint had been dropped in Anna’s correspondence that this was a royal delegation, that Jane would come face-to-face with the ruler of a nation aboard this ship. A drawing-room-sized nation, granted, consisting primarily of uninhabitable mountains and which she’d barely even heard of before looking into it on receipt of Anna’s first letter, but the fact remained that Jane’s preparations for this interview — credential, sartorial, and emotional — would have been significantly different had she known this in advance.
Queen Elsa said Anna’s name in a fondly reproving tone, and the likeness between the two struck Jane even through her haze of astonishment and agitation. This combined with the previous introduction ‘Anna of Arendelle’ rather than Christian name and surname struck Jane with the sudden realization that they were sisters. Anna too, informal and personable as she’d shown herself thus far, was Arendelle royalty.
“I thought she should know before we begin,” Anna said with a twinkle in those compelling aqua eyes. “This is Jane Porter.”
With a monumental effort, Jane got something of a grip and made her curtsey, first toward the queen and then, more shallowly and belatedly, toward the princess or whatever Anna’s official title might be. “Your majesty,” she said. “Your highness.”
“Please, Miss Porter,” the queen replied in a firm but gentle voice that mixed formality and welcome in a manner striking Jane as quite regal, “this expedition is a private undertaking; I’m not here in my capacity as Queen of Arendelle, nor my sister Anna as Princess.” She gestured elegantly to her right with one pale hand. “Neither is Duchess Judith Feinberg here in her capacity of royal advisor, but rather that of personal friend. I didn’t plan on mentioning our official ranks to you until we’d made all our arrangements, but–” shooting her sister a wry look– “Anna obviously had other ideas. I hope you’ll be willing to call us by name rather than title, or ‘ma’am’ if that makes you more comfortable. And naturally our good Captain Bengtsson–” with another wave– “prefers to be addressed by that title.”
While she spoke, Jane examined her more closely than she’d been able to while overcome with confusion and surprise. Queen Elsa of Arendelle appeared to be a little older than her sister, with the same slender figure filled out by middle-aged solidity, and hair gone entirely silver — on which she wore no crown — pulled up into a practical arrangement similar to Anna’s. Her clothing represented equal functionality in a coat of the same cut, hers of a deep purple with blue and green scrollwork in shining thread, and Jane had no doubt she wore, beneath the table unseen for now, a split skirt and stout boots like Anna’s. The only concession her garments made to her position was the embroidered crest of Arendelle on her left breast.
But her eyes…
They were the same as Anna’s, which Jane was beginning to think were also the same as…
It was that slightly greenish blue again, pure and clear, but more than the color it was the intensity that took Jane dizzily back to hot jungle days and a family of (mostly) gorillas. The depth of emotion, the penetrating energy of the spirit behind the startling irises and pupils… Jane knew it. There was little more resemblance in the soft, feminine features to the ones she recalled so clearly, but the expression in those eyes was the same. She would rather have liked to look over at Duchess Feinberg or Captain Bengtsson and take in what she could of their appearances, but couldn’t break away from Elsa’s face. She couldn’t stop the series of shivers that ran, one after another, up her spine.
Just as when she’d been connected to Anna’s gaze as if by a bar of steel, she only realized the queen had stopped speaking after some undetermined period of time had passed. She shook herself, glancing at last toward the princess and finding her watching this time with open curiosity. Fidgeting with hair and hat for a second time in five minutes, untying the latter somewhat absently, Jane took a breath and managed, “Of course, ma’am.”
“Please have a seat–” Elsa gestured at the cabin’s vacant chairs– “and we’ll discuss particulars.”
Jane obeyed, drawing up to the table so she could easily see the charts and other documents thereon, while Anna and the captain did the same at opposite corners. She hoped she could keep her gripping distraction under control and have a professional conversation.
The queen next swept her hand across a map showing the west coast of central Africa, a section of the world Jane was very accustomed to seeing on paper like this. “Our voyage, as Anna informed you by letter, is to the Kingdom of Loango, here, and, if necessary, the surrounding area. We understand your scientific expedition a few years ago was to that area as well.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Here Jane was on far more solid footing, and spoke without hesitation. “Our expedition to study western African gorillas, which was largely funded by legatees of the African Association, took place on the coast here–” she drew her finger along it– “about seventy miles north of the mouth of the Congo River. On our way there, we stopped in a European port in Kakongo — a dreadful place; full of slavers, you know — and stayed there for some time planning and making arrangements and gathering supplies. We stopped in the same area on the way back, and that was an even longer stay. A lot of the locals speak an Africanized French, which I can communicate in tolerably. I know a little about some of the local customs as well, though I’m afraid most of their dialects are beyond me. I am aware that Loango often resists European landings, but there are go-betweens you can procure without much trouble.”
When she looked up, she found both royal sisters as well as the captain nodding, as if this matched what they understood of the area. Elsa discontinued the gesture and stared down at the map with a furrowed brow. After a moment she sighed, looked up, and said, “During the reign of my father, Arendelle imported copper and a few other goods from Loango. Thirty years ago, disputes arose that threatened to break off all trade between our nations, and grew so involved that my parents felt the need to make a diplomatic voyage in person to settle them. They landed in Kakongo in order to approach Loango by land from the south, and dealt with their business there successfully over the course of several weeks. Then something delayed them. I’m sure you know how difficult communication is over such a distance and across such uncertain territories, so you’ll understand that we never knew what it was. But for some reason they only set out several months later for the return voyage, and the confused report we received after that was that their ship had gone down with all hands somewhere off the west African coast.”
Jane’s attention had been seized again by intense aqua during this speech, and as she found herself unable to look away for the moment, she also found herself thinking, I know exactly why they were delayed: they realized your mother was pregnant. Of course they wouldn’t risk the return voyage with her in that condition. And I know just about where their ship must have gone down. And I know your brother.
She couldn’t speak, not to acknowledge what she’d just heard nor to offer her condolences on the loss of three decades before. The shivers up her spine had grown so strong she was almost tempted to call them shudders, and she simply couldn’t manage a single word. Was it true? Could it be true? The phenomenal improbability of this coincidence, if it were, deafened her with the shout that it couldn’t possibly be… yet how did the saying go? Il est impossible que l’improbable n’arrive jamais? Science was full of improbabilities, and so, perhaps, was life.
That didn’t mean she could say a word, however. How could she tell them this on only the evidence she had? An area of the world, a timeline clicking into place, a color of too-familiar irises… Every moment her belief grew stronger, but with no other proof than a collection of impressions. No, best to hold her tongue on this matter until she was more certain. Especially since her own long-term plans remained hazy in the extreme.
Finally Elsa, seeing Jane did not intend to speak, finished her tale. “Events in Arendelle after our parents’ death led us to drop the connection with Loango as inconvenient, and we never renewed trade with that area of the world.” As a sort of aside she added, “We agree with you that slavers are simply dreadful. In any case, just a few weeks ago, a trader brought us what he considered an antique clearly of Arendelle design but which we recognized immediately as having belonged to our mother. It was just an old trinket, but it was our father’s gift to her, and unmistakable to us. There was a story connected with it of a sailor having survived a shipwreck and salvaged what he could on the west coast of Africa somewhere in the Loango area.”
Jane’s heart clenched. That they’d essentially taken one look at the trinket that had made a five-thousand-mile, thirty-year journey into their hands and immediately planned to trace that long course back could only mean they harbored some hope that one or both of their parents, even in old age, might yet live — and Jane knew full well they did not. And yet there was a relation for them to find down there, a brother so full of life he might almost put paid to those three decades of sorrow. But did Jane really want to find him again? And what would she do if she did? And why couldn’t she say his name even in her private thoughts?
Tarzan. Tarzan of the apes was an unknown Prince of Arendelle, secret brother of Elsa and Anna, son of the late king and queen. Tarzan was the trace of their lost parents these women were seeking.
Could she tell them? Would they believe her?
Not now; not yet. But she must be included in this expedition.
Rallying herself once again with great force of will, she managed at last to express her understanding of and engagement in the story, her condolences on the apparent loss of their parents, and her continued interest in joining their crew. She emphasized her qualifications and the manner in which she could be of assistance to them in an area with which she was somewhat familiar but they were not, and produced what letters of recommendation and credentials she’d brought with her.
As she went through all of this, she tried very hard not to get lost once again in Elsa’s eyes, and as part of that effort bestowed her glance equally upon everyone that sat in a convenient position to be looked at. And she was surprised and a little dismayed to find that there was another source of distraction in the room, as she’d suspected earlier, in the person of the duchess to the queen’s right. This was a thin, dark woman of about Elsa’s age, her bearing as upright as the captain’s but seeming nevertheless at ease. Still, from the fringed scarf covering her hair, to the coat as elegant and fine as those of the royal women yet cut to a completely different design, to her slightly but discernibly dusky coloration and the very features of her face, she did not appear someone Jane had not expected to find as a ‘royal advisor’ and ‘personal friend’ of the pale northern Elsa.
The latter took no exception to any evident distraction on Jane’s part, but seemed satisfied with her qualifications as stated verbally and presented in writing. She only regretted, she said, that they had not the means of financing a proper expedition such as Jane had been hoping to conduct; but she would be glad to take her back into a part of the world that clearly greatly intrigued her, and hoped the salary they offered would represent some advancement of her goals. Jane certainly wasn’t about to tell her that the first expedition had represented thirty years’ worth of savings on the part of her father and, before an untimely death, her mother, and the salary provided by one voyage, generous as Elsa’s offer was, seemed unlikely to make much of a dent in the sum necessary for a second. Elsa’s other point still stood, and it relieved Jane significantly to have secured a position on this ship.
Thereafter, a more technical description of the intended journey was given by Captain Bengtsson, and Jane, after sorting through the nautical terms she didn’t understand, generally agreed that it sounded sensible. They discussed the details of her employment and signed a contract, and her luggage — packed in advance for the type of voyage specified in Anna’s letter in case of a desirable issue of this interview — was sent for from her hotel. A tide was set for departure, and Jane was more than satisfied.
That night, however, found her hopelessly insomniac. Usually the movements of a ship under sail — between bouts of steam power — were restful and soothing to her, but mental agitation in this case overcame physical comfort even before the wind died and the engines were required for further motion.
She’d been assigned one of the ship’s two staterooms to share with Princess Anna, and certainly that formed part of her agitation. Anna had behaved toward Jane throughout the day with casual friendliness, and at times an almost sisterly comradeliness, and if she’d been anyone else in the world Jane would have valued her as a roommate. Yet she was royalty, and Jane couldn’t determine yet exactly how to interact with her. So she’d donned her coat, tiptoed from the room onto the quarterdeck, and found a spot at the railing where, not too blinded by the light of the nearest lantern that she’d avoided, she could look out over the dark water and up at the stars.
Royalty. Jane’s own blood ran a distilled blue, her father tracing his line back to a lesser French prince that had fled to England with wife and children a hundred years before, and this formed the basis of nearly all her problems. Not only did the pride of lineage her mother had always attempted to instill in her increase her uncertainty at how to deal with proper royalty in this context, it was that same pride that had driven her from Africa in the first place. “I belong in England… with people…” — those words would never have crossed her lips without her mother’s influence strong in the back of her mind reminding her of her place, her prospects, her deserts.
And now she was returning. Why, exactly? What would she do if she found Tarzan again? Confirm he still lived, then say a more permanent goodbye? Or turn her back on her dignity and become a woman of the jungle, bringing her father, in whom her mother had also felt so much happy pride, with her into the same darkness?
Beyond that, the aforementioned almost sisterly behavior at times displayed by Princess Anna made her more uncomfortable than ever with that second possibility. Did she aim to become Anna’s sister in reality? She had no idea what the two Arendelle women would think of their unknown brother if they were to meet him… What, furthermore, could they possibly think of an English gentlewoman bent on spending her life with such a savage-seeming man? Was any sort of acceptance to be expected, or would they withdraw in horror both from Tarzan and from the idea of Jane requesting Captain Bengtsson to perform the ceremony aboard this ship and them to return a message to her father in England that he should join her and his new son-in-law at once on the west African coast?
Returning meant she had to decide whether to seek Tarzan out once again, what to do if she found him, and whether to tell Elsa and Anna what she believed about the situation. And her mother’s voice seemed to speak to her out of the past, urging her to decide one way, while her heart seemed to be pulling her in precisely the opposite direction.
“Jane?”
She jumped at the sound of her own name and whirled with a gasp to find Anna approaching so quietly that her steps had been drowned out by the rushing of the sea beneath them. Her heart suddenly beat faster than the rhythmic rumbling of the steam engine through the deck. “Oh! Your– Anna. Good evening.”
“Good evening,” Anna returned, and her starlit smile reflected all the curiosity she’d never yet expressed aloud. “Can’t sleep?”
“I don’t much fancy traveling under steam power,” Jane admitted — and it was the truth — “but I’ll get used to it.”
Anna came to join her at the railing. “I can’t say I’m fond of that development myself.” Her interested face turned eagerly toward the stars reminded Jane yet again of Tarzan: always fascinated by the beautiful and impartially understood, no matter how commonly encountered. “But I’m looking forward to seeing Africa. How about you?”
“I…” Jane sighed. And if Anna hadn’t gone and hit near the very center of her reverie… “Yes,” she finally said honestly. “I am.”
“But you didn’t expect to be traveling with royalty.” Now Anna sounded half apologetic and half prodding: she did want to figure out what Jane’s dazed reactions earlier had been about.
At this Jane managed a smile. “No, not at all. In fact I felt in danger of fainting when you presented your sister; I really did.” And then, because she simply couldn’t bring herself to mention Tarzan just yet, no matter how much the friendly Anna wanted elucidation, she hastened on with, “If I may ask, are you two the only sisters? In whose care did you leave Arendelle?”
“We are,” Anna replied easily, leaning both arms on the rail. “And we have a whole collection of dukes and duchesses, including my husband, who are happy to look after the kingdom for us while we’re away. Arendelle is… unusually fond of my sister–” she grinned privately– “and when people heard we might be able to find some information about our parents by going to sea, they were tripping over themselves offering help so Elsa could go with a clear conscience.”
“That’s so kind of them.” Unsure what volunteering to look after a small kingdom on behalf of its sea-bent ruler precisely entailed, Jane couldn’t think of much else to say. So again she hastened on somewhat at random. “And the duchess? Does she have a financial interest in this trip?”
Anna gave her a puzzled look. “No, she’s just along as Elsa’s particular friend. Why would you think that?”
“Well, isn’t she…” Awkwardly Jane twisted her hands. “Forgive me if I’ve jumped to an incorrect conclusion, but isn’t she…” She lowered her voice a trifle in order to finish, “a Jew?”
Standing straight and folding her arms, Anna stared at Jane with one brow raised. “Yes, she is. What difference does that make?”
“Oh, none at all, I’m sure,” said Jane, hastier even than before. “I’m sure the Jews are lovely people.”
Anna’s second brow went up, and her skeptical look took on a touch of disapproval. “Are you?”
Very seriously Jane said, “Please understand I intend no offense. To be perfectly frank, I’ve barely ever spoken to any Jews, and have no real opinion — if any opinion is even necessary. It was my mother who always…” She trailed off and sighed. It kept coming back to that.
Anna’s expression softened. “Judith is basically a member of the family, and sometimes I forget that the rest of the Christian world doesn’t have Jewish sisters. Was your mother particularly opposed to Jews?”
Jane pursed her lips. “She might have been. Of course she was always civil, but I’m afraid she had her prejudices.”
“So many people do,” Anna murmured.
“It’s hard to look back on her and know what to think.” Again Jane leaned on the polished wood before her and regarded the ocean. “She spent my childhood teaching me ladylike behavior and the rules of society because she wanted to see me a successful, accomplished, happy woman, and she loved me so dearly…” It seemed an imposition to be discussing such personal matters on such short acquaintance, but she wanted to offer some explanation for what she now saw had been a markedly impolite remark. “But so much of what she believed contradicts so much of what I want to believe now.”
Mrs. Porter had highly valued her husband’s scientific pursuits, and, given the longstanding family tradition of devouring any book one could get one’s hands on, had always encouraged Jane therein as well. But would she have approved of a young lady actually physically taking part in an expedition to Africa? Jane had often asked herself that under the green canopy she so loved as she bathed from a small basin behind a screen at their campsite.
Mrs. Porter had always taught her daughter to treat her inferiors with kindness and charity, but Jane wasn’t sure her mother had ever truly believed Park’s assertion that whatever difference there is between the negro and European, in the conformation of the nose, and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature. Would she have approved of a descendent of Prince Adam of France hob-nobbing with the people of the Congo area?
Mrs. Porter had stressed the importance of marrying a respectable man of good upbringing — and very hopefully of good family — that would treat his wife well and be able to support her at the level to which she was accustomed. Would even the blood of Arendelle serve to compensate for a complete lack of gentility in lifestyle and connections? No, Jane didn’t think it would. And that was why she’d gone back to England. She’d regretted the decision the moment she’d made it, but had never been able to reconcile herself to contradicting her mother’s wishes either.
Her voice trembled as she finished her explanation. “She did everything she thought was best for me, and I feel as if it’s disrespectful to her memory to abandon what she taught me — as if what she did and what she wanted for me are all I have left of her.” She glanced penitently at Anna and added, “But that doesn’t mean I have any wish to speak disrespectfully of anyone you think well of.”
A certain depth to the sad smile on Anna’s face seemed indicate both that Jane was forgiven and that this discourse had struck a chord. As she had that morning, she reached out to take Jane’s hand. Her own was ungloved, and Jane wondered whether living so far north made her less susceptible to the cold. As she applied friendly pressure, she said, “It’s hard to know what to think about my parents too.” Her gaze, even as it met Jane’s, seemed to withdraw, as if, though every word had weight, she watched far-off events rather than her companion’s reaction. “They did everything they thought was best for Elsa and me — especially Elsa — and they were, to be blunt, wrong. They loved us so much, and they tried so hard… but what they did supposedly in our best interests caused us years and years of suffering. I don’t resent them — obviously, or I wouldn’t be on a voyage right now looking for any clue to what happened to them! — but I don’t feel the need to cling to their bad ideas. I don’t think it’s disrespectful at all to let go of something someone’s taught you that was simply incorrect, even if you dearly loved that person and they you.”
Jane watched Anna’s eyes, so similar in color and energy to Tarzan’s, and considered her words in something of a stupor. Older and more experienced, royalty, herself married, sister to the man Jane loved and sisterly in and of herself, having been through something at least vaguely similar to what Jane had thanks to the misguided actions of a parent… Anna was perhaps the only person in the world that could have driven this advice home. She let her glance drop to where Anna held her hand tightly as if with an urgent desire to convey more gently the lesson her own past had so painfully taught her. And she suddenly remembered, with a fresh throb of the heartache that had plagued her ever since that moment, a glove flying from her hand in the wind and spinning away to land in the surf at Tarzan’s knuckles just as if she really had been letting go of her hold on her mother’s mistaken precepts and resolving to stay with him as her father had urged.
She hadn’t been. But could she now?
“Goodness, we’ve gotten personal out here,” Anna said, abruptly releasing her with one more squeeze and half a sheepish grin. “I’m so emotional all of a sudden thinking about my parents, and it’s been thirty years.” She laughed a little, but as she turned away Jane thought with some concern she saw sparkling around the edges of the princess’ eyes beyond what starlight could account for.
“Oh, dear. I hope I haven’t upset you.”
“Not a bit!” Anna was definitely wiping away tears with her back turned to Jane, perhaps eschewing the use of a handkerchief in an attempt at concealing the motion. “Not that I’d consider it your fault if you had, with me being the one to bring up my parents. Still, I think I’ll go back to the cabin now. Good night!”
Jane almost asked her to stay, but wasn’t quite to the point of pouring out the tale of Tarzan just yet, and so only returned her goodbye. She watched the spry figure disappear through the door that led to the cabins, then turned with another sigh, hugging herself against the chill of the night and the sea spray, to look out into forever again.
She kept picturing that glove, and how it had almost taken her back to him. But the other one had remained, a stark symbol of everything her mother had stood for, and once aboard the ship she had replaced the one she’d lost. And she’d never felt good about it. Now she imagined tearing off the gloves she currently wore and tossing them into the ocean below, throwing away that symbol and truly going back. She didn’t actually do this, since the cold did bother her, but one by one the mental gloves were discarded as she examined her mother’s truths and rejected them.
Royalty, or simply someone that had married a royal descendent, could make poor choices regarding their children, even coming from a place of love. A descendent of royalty could do unladylike things such as every single activity Jane had taken part in the last time she’d been in Africa. A descendent of royalty could get distracted by matters she truly valued and drop some of the trappings of polished society. A descendent of royalty could make friends with Jews and Negroes and not consider them inferiors to be regarded only through the lens of noblesse oblige.
But could a descendant of royalty marry a man completely uncivilized, unmoneyed, unknown to the enlightened world, and usually unclothed? This was the point where she repeatedly stuck, the glove that just wouldn’t come off.
She had squeezed herself into a corner and laid her cheek forlornly against an upright beam, in spite of the chill, and this time, rather than her failing to notice those that emerged from the cabins, it appeared they missed the presence of anyone standing in a narrow little spot beside the railing. They climbed the stairs onto the upper deck without seeming a glance in her direction, and moved to gaze out over the prow. The lantern on the poop revealed them as Elsa and Judith, strolling easily to their destination arm in arm.
Jane watched them forlornly, envying their easy steps and evidently easy consciences. Elsa had been, if not as warm and talkative as her sister, nothing but civility and grace, and the duchess’ politeness, though quiet, had never been tainted by any coolness or restraint. But they hadn’t talked to Jane as pleasantly and freely as they seemed to be talking to each other now. Their low, indistinguishable conversation nevertheless proved how intimate and comfortable they were with each other, and the dark sea surely had no such effect on them as it did on Jane.
She should return to bed, she considered as she continued somewhat absently to watch the two women in the lamplight on the higher deck. She had over four thousand nautical miles to work the matter out, and anyway she was weary from the long train of thought she’d already engaged in tonight. That should help her sleep, and by tomorrow night perhaps she would be reaccustomed to the movements of the ship under all varieties of power.
Frozen in place, however, she found herself abruptly stock-still as she would have moved toward the door to the cabins, staring upward with widened eyes, unable to take a step. For of all things that could have arrested her complete attention and even torn it from contemplation of Tarzan and what to do about him, nearly foremost on the list was Judith turning a smiling face toward her queen and interrupting the latter’s laugh by kissing her full on the lips. She withdrew only after several loving moments, then laid her head on Elsa’s shoulder.
That had been no familial kiss, and it was clear that when Anna had referred to the duchess as being like a sister, she’d meant only to herself. To Elsa Judith was obviously something different, something more. And Jane could not have been more astonished.
Oh, she’d heard of such behavior. Suffragettes talked about it at times when the desired freedoms of women arose in conversation, and of course there was the poetry of Sappho. But she’d never in life thought to encounter women living out a Lesbian tradition in front of her very eyes. It gave her an even greater shock than had Anna’s earlier words concerning the very real possibility of a loving parent making choices that would traumatize their children for years. It was… it was…
It was sending her thoughts hurtling in the direction of Tarzan again as if they were made of India rubber and now sprang back with a violence proportional to the force with which they’d been thrown away.
Because Queen Elsa of Arendelle, not merely the descendent of a prince that had (like so many royals and nobles) fled a people’s revolution a century ago, but the much-loved monarch of a nation, felt herself free to take a lover that would surely meet with approval neither from Mrs. Porter nor society at large — both a Jew in a Christian nation and a woman. She was not standing up there on that deck worrying about the propriety of her match, nor clinging to the poor decisions her parents had made trying to do what they thought was best for her.
Jane didn’t know how she felt about this issue of Lesbian love that had just exploded upon her, but had a sneaking suspicion that, as with Jews, she wasn’t actually called upon or perhaps qualified to have an opinion. All she knew was that Queen Elsa, someone her mother would have wept with joy to see her daughter grow up to be like in many respects, was following her heart.
Taking care to walk as quietly as she could so as not to disturb the sweethearts on the poop deck nor reveal to them that she now knew their secret — though, in full view of the watch as they were, the ship’s entire crew must be in on it already — Jane moved with a sudden warm sense of internal peace she hadn’t felt in longer than she could remember into the hallway off of which the cabins opened.
Inside her state room, she found her princess roommate and possible sister seated at the dressing table brushing out her greying red hair. A smile and those energetic crinkled eyes met Jane in the mirror as she entered, and Jane took a deep breath.
“Anna,” she said quietly, “may I tell you a story?”
My final November Quick Fics 2018 prompt, which took me approximately forever to write a story for, was from my co-worker Julia, who said, “Jane actually leaves Tarzan at the end of the movie and spends about 5 or so years trying everything to get back to him. She finally finds a way back because Elsa and Anna are trying to find him too.” Technically Elsa and Anna don’t know here that they’re looking for Tarzan, but close enough, eh? :D This one now holds the record as my longest November Quick Fic!
For a few author’s notes on this story, see this Productivity Log. I’ve rated it 
and actually wouldn’t mind seeing a follow-up.
With some surprise Seiya took the paper Yaten held out, and skimmed it. Yaten didn’t write lyrics often, so it always came as something of a surprise. She supposed she could have handed the sheet over more gracefully, too, than with nothing beyond the grumbled name of a currently popular song with a similar meter.
Seiya started to hum as she neared the bottom of the page, and Yaten, observing she’d caught the working melody, turned away and moved to the widow seat, where she drew her knees up to her chin and stared somewhat sullenly out the dark glass. In these male bodies, Seiya alone of the three of them had a soloist’s voice, which Yaten blatantly resented since she’d loved to sing back on Kinmoku. Now it was backup or embarrassment, and though Yaten often chose the latter, Seiya was really the only one that could do a dry run of a new lyric.
Taiki, who’d arrived in time to hear the name of the song Yaten had mentioned and then taken her customary place at the keyboard, now played a few introductory chords.
“Two notes lower,” Seiya requested.
Taiki frowned as she did a quick and somewhat difficult mental transition, played a few more chords to get the feel of the new key, and paused.
“And there’s a bridge I’m going to have to improvise,” Seiya added. “Maybe just drop out when I get there.”
Taiki nodded, fingers poised on the keys, and Seiya started the run-through.
Once this gentle heart of mine gave birth to so much love,
But with the ending of my world I had to lock it up,
Wrapped in starry scarlet like the glitter of your hair,
Surround myself in marble as I struggled not to care.
But can you blame me?
Can you blame me?
I feel it every time.
Of course they each had an image, a specific niche they filled in the band: Seiya the bad boy, the show-off; Taiki the scholar, the aloof and dignified; and Yaten the hard-hearted, the cold-hearted, the bitch. She knew she had a following, a specific set of fans of this persona that went starry-eyed every time she rudely refused to take a picture with the groupies or made some overly harsh comment in an interview.
And this song would be a calculated risk, representing as it did a shift in that persona, but Yaten thought it would pay out by solidifying that part of the fanbase without a lot of interaction with them on her part. She was pretty sure most of them already believed her to be so seemingly unfeeling because of some great tragedy in her past. They were right, of course, but their vapid imaginations went no farther than ‘loss of girlfriend…’ which was exactly what these lyrics would be taken as confirmation of, sending most of the hiding-his-broken-heart-Yaten contingent into paroxysms of pity and passionate love. And those that legitimately liked her because of her perceived unkindness were the type of people she didn’t want as her fans anyway.
Not that she wanted any fans.
And it’s not your fault for leaving,
But if you came back you’d fix everything.
Please return to me,
And return me to the me I used to be.
It had been different once. On Kinmoku or on the moon that had been her particular domain under Kakyuu’s rule, Yaten had been happy to share her music, when she had time, with everyone around her. She’d been pleased to have admirers that appreciated her talents. She never would have refused anyone a picture or made overly harsh comments back then. But that had been before every single one of them had died.
Here on Earth she looked out over a sea of humanity and tried to pretend she neither liked nor cared about them. It didn’t quite work — and every time one of them had a Star Seed taken, she literally ached — but she was able to present this frigid front to save herself, and part of that was denying her fans. Fans that might well be multiplied by this song when they realized it was only unbearable pain that had made her so cold. Oh, joy.
Though I’ve tried to block it out, I always feel their pain,
But these angry, fisted hands may never heal again.
Somewhere past my cruelty I’m longing to be kind,
But when everything is gone, what’s left to do but hide behind
The walls I’m building?
These walls I’m building…
I feel it every time.
When she did write lyrics, she tended to put her heart and soul into them; none of her songs were fictional as so many tended to be. As such, when performed or even recorded, they always included the psychic message the trio desperately hoped would bring Kakyuu back to them. Of course the band came up with a decent number of more mundane pieces — they had to fill up their concerts and albums somehow, and it took a lot out of them if every song sent the broadcast — and Yaten dutifully orchestrated them and played bass and sang harmony as needed… but, though she put plenty of artistic energy into them, those songs didn’t mean a thing to her. The trio had one mission, one goal, one purpose that swallowed up everything else; she couldn’t afford — and had no desire! — to get caught up in other nonsense.
And the rest of the band business? The signings and the sponsoring events and the advertising contracts and the interviews? That was even purer nonsense than the casual music required of them by circumstance. She considered it nothing very worthy of censure to give very little effort to that.
It wasn’t as if she needed anyone around here to respect her work ethic anyway. Though perhaps, deep down, in the part of her that lived in the past on a now-barren world, she might have liked them to.
And it’s not your fault I’m alone now,
But if you found me I know I’d know how
To say I’m sorry,
And return me to the me I used to be.
All this drama with the local Sailor Senshi had made her feel worse than ever. That Sailor Moon, like their own princess, had the power to restore phage to human form, to restore stolen Star Seeds, cut like a knife into the breast of one that had sensed so many of her own people disappear forever at the hands of Shadow Galactica. Of course Kakyuu would have saved them if she could, but, wounded and defeated, hadn’t been given that choice. That someone else out there had the power to prevent all that death and suffering, but hadn’t been present to do so, hurt so badly it was almost a catalyst to draw out all the emotions Yaten was so industriously repressing.
And that Sailor Moon clearly wanted to help, had been the one to insist in the first place they heal the phage instead of simply destroying them… that was so close to unbearable Yaten simply refused to think about it. Not only because it represented a missed opportunity, however remote the chances, but because healing…
No, she would never consent to join forces with Sailor Moon and her handmaidens. Never. Let them heal their own world, since they oh-so-fortunately still had the power to do so. Or fall to Galaxia, for all Yaten cared.
I feel it every time:
Every sorrow and hurt.
They reach out to me, and I turn away without a word.
Are you reaching out too?
I swear I feel you near.
I know the type of me you’d prefer…
Kakyuu was out there somewhere. And ‘out’ perhaps wasn’t even the right term; Yaten could absolutely sense her somewhere on this planet, somewhere in this country. The others couldn’t — at least not nearly so strongly — which was why Yaten herself had led them here, and at first she’d looked down on them for that. In her newly forged emotional withdrawal and harshness, she’d disdained her fellow soldiers for lacking her adeptness in one particular area.
But she was past that now. They had their own skills, as she’d known all along and had eventually come to accept even through the walls and the bitterness. It was impolitic in any case to demand more of them, or to blame them for working in their own ways alongside her when that work was more important than any individual’s strengths or weaknesses.
Would she ever see her princess again, though? Every time she thought about it, a dull ache she simply couldn’t push down throbbed through her. Where, exactly, was Kakyuu? What was she doing? Dying of her wounds, or biding her time? Working toward some goal, or just slowly healing?
And did she fail to respond to their desperate songs because she didn’t feel it safe to do so, or because she didn’t hear… or because they had changed so much she no longer wanted or needed them?
Yaten refused to think about it. Just finding her… that would be enough.
And it’s not your fault I’m broken,
But if I saw you I’d be whole again.
Please don’t forget me,
And return me to the me I used to be.
She didn’t like what she was. That was one truth of the song: she wished she could be other. In reality she didn’t think she could go back to her former self, because she couldn’t unsee the horrors she’d witnessed on Kinmoku and on her moon, and she couldn’t unfeel the pain of her princess’ flight to this unknown world. And it would take some doing even just to unwrap the layers of unkindness she’d used to hide from everyone she might have loved.
But if she could grow from the experience into a better, gentler, stronger version of her old self… couldn’t she better serve her princess that way? Perhaps someday she could even heal again… if only she could find her…
And until then, the walls. The marble. The near-complete insensitivity.
We’ll be together. I’ll find you.
I won’t stop searching past the stars and the moon,
Through the galaxy,
For my princess and the me I used to be.
That last chorus… Yaten wasn’t quite sure about it, and would probably cut it. Too many of their songs already used the word ‘princess,’ and eventually even the most thick-headed fan had to wonder why the Three Lights all seemed to be obsessed with someone they called by that name. The imagery of stars and moon was also repetitive of similar wordings in other pieces, and, though it was difficult to avoid, it did get old after a while.
Beyond that, the attitude seemed a little… optimistic. After all, perhaps, as Yaten had reflected before, Kakyuu didn’t want to be found. Perhaps she was on a mission of such importance she’d considered it expedient to shed everything that might hold her back, including her own soldiers. Or perhaps she didn’t even recognize them in their young men’s bodies.
Yaten stared down at her boy’s hands as Seiya finished singing. This was another thing she hated. The others often seemed fairly comfortable in their bodies, but Yaten never was. The only time she felt physically right was when she transformed. Just another thing to hate about herself and the contingencies of the mission they were on.
Seiya went over the bridge again, experimenting with a different melody without accompaniment. Then she tried one of the verses a little slower than before, making it sound even more soulful in her smooth voice. Yaten fought a prickle of tears behind her eyes as her own words, her own deepest thoughts and the pain that prompted them, poured out of her comrade’s mouth.
Finally Seiya ceased singing all together. Yaten’s gaze shifted to where she could see Seiya’s reflection in the window, and, observing her frowning slightly over the paper, Yaten frowned as well. And Seiya asked, “Don’t you think some of this is a little obscure for a boy band?”
“No more obscure than most of Taiki’s lyrics,” Yaten almost snapped back.
“That’s true,” Taiki admitted. Gently she added, “I think they’re excellent lyrics, Yaten.”
Seiya’s reflection nodded. “We’ll have to find a different melody, of course, but this’ll make a great song.”
Almost against her will, Yaten smiled faintly. Because she knew they’d suffered very much as she had, changed in their own ways as she had in hers. Because she knew that by ‘excellent lyrics’ and ‘great song’ they meant, “We understand every word; we’re with you in pain and in hope.”
Because where she’d previously had fellow servants of a higher authority from different moons, barely even acquaintances, she now had sisters — or perhaps brothers — with the same name, the same goals, the same trauma.
She swiveled in the window seat and stood. “Let’s practice something else,” she said airily, as if none of this mattered, and headed to pick up her own instrument.
And maybe she would keep that last chorus in after all.
An anonymous Guest gave me the following November Quick Fics 2018 thoughts:
I’m not sure if you would be interested, but I feel like the Starlights don’t really have enough fics about them? I’m particularly interested in Yaten and her apparent (psychic? emphatic?) abilities. None of the Solar Senshi were able to tell when a Star Seed was taken, yet she always did. How was she affected when her own planet was destroyed? I mean, could it be a reason for her to close herself off and become so resistant to getting attached again? I feel like one of the reasons she never lost faith in the Princess and knew she was somewhere out there was because she could sense that she was alive, but then seeing her die would have hit her twice as hard. It also seemed to me that while Taiki and Seiya could be a little harsh on each other, they were more tolerant of Yaten’s mood swings and when they did scold her (i.e. for throwing away fans’ letters) they were always gentle. Lastly, her name’s Healer but she doesn’t seem to have the ability to actually heal – or could that be that by cutting herself away from her emotions she also cut away her healing powers? (we do know some other characters have these.) I feel like there is much to explore here (not necessarily in the way I see it). Or maybe not, and I’m terribly wrong…
I think I hit most of the points. I’ve rated this story
During the deep winter, having the wood stove on the arbiter’s platform was a distinct blessing. In late autumn, however, with a temperature chilly enough for a fire but not nearly low enough to justify the remarkable level of heat the stove produced in the immediate vicinity of Kenshin’s entire right side, he could never determine whether too hot or too cold was the better option. But since he now approached his fifth anniversary as an arbiter for the sovereignty and his requests to rethink the arrangement of the assessment hall had consistently been ignored, he doubted anyone would jump to accommodate him any time soon.
Too hot or too cold, he would cease to be bothered by the uncomfortably fluctuating temperatures the very minute this assessment became a little less tedious — that is, if they ever managed to get through the small fry. These consisted of acquaintances of the accused — from household slaves to employees of the young man’s father to ‘friends’ probably better described as ‘convenient drinking companions with no real depth of attachment’ — and Kenshin couldn’t think very highly of any of them.
Of course the avowal of slaves at an assessment wasn’t worth nearly as much as that of any person at liberty, since, caught between potentially vengeful masters and the law, they tended to say what they believed would best benefit them (or at least stave off punishment); but even the free and supposedly honest people that had been offering information thus far hadn’t struck Kenshin as particularly reliable. Half of them had sworn up and down that the accused was buried to the eyebrows in his father’s treasonous dealings, while the rest had maintained he’d taken no part whatsoever in them and was, in fact, the best guy in the world.
Kenshin found each style of avowal suspicious in this situation, and reflected wryly that liars would always lie. Respect for truth, most likely, would not be found among the undoubtedly numerous reasons any of them might want this assessment to go one way rather than another. Some of those reasons would probably come to light, bidden or unbidden, during their assessments, many of which Kenshin would also have to arbitrate. He didn’t greatly anticipate that.
This assessment, however, teased interest despite the frustrating tangle of dishonesty that had comprised its first hour and a half. The accused had a very handsome and honest face and a lively, compelling manner that could have predisposed anyone in his favor; his air of mingled annoyance and concern was understandable at the moment, too, given that, whatever his state of innocence or guilt, it must be disconcerting and worrisome to hear half the people he knew painting him as a saint while the rest decried his many evil deeds.
The queue of liars seemed, thankfully, to have come to an end with the latest one, whose earnest statement that, “Nobody who buys everyone drinks as much as he does could be a bad guy,” had the ring more of rote practice than of genuine feeling. As this particular young man was not in custody, he could go about his business freely when dismissed, and he gave the accused a casual encouraging wave on the way out. Neither circumstance forced Kenshin to rethink his opinion that the avowal had been more than a bit of an act aimed at freeing the frequent buyer of drinks.
Kaoru, overseer of assessments, watched the last of the riff-raff allowed out the exit, which was relocked behind him by the sentinel there, then glanced back to where a messenger had been waiting, patient and silent, beside the door near the back of the hall that led deeper into the building. At her movement, the man shook his head. She gestured her thanks, and the messenger imitated the latest witness by leaving the room and having the door locked behind him. Then Kaoru turned toward where Kenshin sat on the arbiter’s platform. “Looks like the father of the accused continues to refuse to avow.”
“All right,” said Kenshin. None of them could be happy about this, but unfortunately no inference could be drawn from it; conceivable motives came to mind in droves for someone to refuse to avow, whether the accused was innocent or guilty. It did decrease the amount of information the arbiter had to work with, but there was nothing to be done about it. The accused, Kenshin noted, merely appeared to have been expecting this; there was no guessing the exact significance of the deep breath he drew and released at hearing the news.
Again Kaoru glanced around the hall, a somewhat unnecessary movement as she stood at its head beside the arbiter’s platform and therefore had a clear view of everyone present. “The last witness will be here as soon as possible; there’s no telling how long it may take. Do you want a break, or would you prefer if Megumi questions the accused out of order?”
Kenshin’s eyes were drawn to the accused, who, where he waited in the care of a two-person armed escort, had twitched visibly at the mention of ‘the last witness.’ Evidently the final participant’s avowal would be the most important — or, at least, the information that had the accused most agitated. Curious and wishing to proceed, Kenshin said, “I would prefer to hear from the accused.”
With another nod, Kaoru also fixed her eyes on the young man. “Sanosuke of lineage Shishio, please step onto the witness’ platform.”
Unlike Kenshin’s platform, which was reached by a small flight of stairs in order that the arbiter might observe the proceedings from an elevated angle, that from which witnesses avowed was a single step up from the floor and mostly surrounded by a plain railing as if the witness were in a cage. This cage Sanosuke now entered, moving with a vigor that matched the energy of his gaze and general bearing, seeming somewhat loath about the upcoming questioning but with an evident determination to get this over with.
“Megumi,” Kaoru said, “the time is yours.”
The questioner had been availing herself, in between witnesses, of the drinking water on the table where the hall scribe sat recording what was said. Now she turned with her usual impassive gaze and began the traditional reiteration of the initial statement of the accused: “At the beginning of this assessment, you maintained your innocence of the accusation of complicity in the treasonous activities of your father Makoto. After the avowals we have heard from the previous witnesses, do you wish to change this statement in any way?”
Sanosuke scratched his head and appeared a little annoyed. “I don’t see why I’d want to change what I said because of any of that bullshit.” Then he threw a quick look, half penitent and half concerned, with an overlay of sheepish joviality, up at Kenshin. “Guess I shouldn’t swear in an assessment, huh?”
The young man was so winning that Kenshin couldn’t help a somewhat indulgent feeling as he looked down at him. It was Kaoru, however, as overseer, that replied: “You may not abuse anyone present, but otherwise we’d prefer you to speak as naturally as you can.”
The grin Sanosuke returned for this seemed relieved he hadn’t landed himself in trouble with almost his first statement, but still far more determined to get this over with than in any way happy to be here. Then he turned back to the questioner and said squarely, “So, yeah, I don’t want to change what I said. Still innocent of that.”
“Very well,” Megumi replied. Kenshin didn’t think he imagined a slight smile, if not on her face, at least in her bearing. It took a lot to compromise Megumi’s professionalism, but Kenshin knew her well enough that he could tell when she was hiding amusement. “If you are willing to avow on your own behalf, you will need to take the Oath of Honesty.”
Over the years Kenshin had seen many witnesses — even some he’d eventually declared innocent — display reluctance or discomfort regarding the Oath, so he knew the signs. And if Sanosuke had any problem repeating the ritual words after Megumi, swearing to speak the exact truth to the best of his ability and belief, he certainly hid it well. He was either completely ingenuous or an extremely convincing actor.
Megumi’s first question once the formalities had been seen to was, “If you were not involved in your father’s treasonous activities, surely you must at least have been aware of them?”
“Uh, not exactly,” Sanosuke replied. “I wasn’t really surprised when I heard what the accusation was, but I didn’t realize before that’s what he was doing.”
“So you always knew your father didn’t have the most solid moral code regarding business?”
“Regarding anything. ‘Always’ might be an overstatement, but, yeah, I’ve known that for years.”
“But you were not aware specifically of any criminal activity.”
“That’s right.”
Megumi excelled at her job of drawing from witnesses as much information as she could so the arbiter of the assessment could make the fairest judgment possible. And it not infrequently happened that she got a hint of some crime additional to or separate from the one in question; in such cases, she strove to clarify the situation as far as she could. Here, Kenshin could see, she was working to differentiate between the stated accusation ‘complicity in treason’ and the unspoken possibility ‘failure to report criminal activity,’ of which Sanosuke might still be guilty even had he never taken part in his father’s misdeeds.
“Would you tell us,” she requested, “what details you know about your father’s business?”
“Um, sure.” Sanosuke sounded a little skeptical, as if Megumi was asking for either a large amount of or some particularly dull information. “His main job is — I guess was — working with different factions all over the kingdom negotiating accords and shit. I always thought it was the most boring job I ever heard of, but I guess if he was secretly working with enemies of the sovereignty, that makes it more exciting. Probably more money in that, too… not like we ever needed more money.”
As Sanosuke went on in a very rambling fashion to describe his father’s work as he understood it, Kenshin was hard-pressed to restrain blatant laughter. Very little of what the accused had to say contained any significant detail, and some of it seemed so improbable as to suggest Sanosuke either knew next to nothing about the actual workings of Makoto’s employment or was, once again, an extremely skilled — and entertaining! — dissembler.
Megumi was a bit too deadpan as she asked her next question for Kenshin to believe her unaffected by Sanosuke’s amusing account. “You just recently turned nineteen, I believe. As a legal adult, how is it that you know so little of your father’s business?”
Sanosuke’s straightforward gaze strayed from Megumi’s face for a moment as if he didn’t want to meet her eyes. Tone equally abashed as he eventually looked back at her, he said, “Well, you know… up until just this last month or so, I never really cared about… serious shit. I mostly just fucked around and enjoyed myself. Dad’s been trying to get me into the business for years, but that was just so boring…”
“But I understand that changed when you turned nineteen. Your father finally managed to force some responsibility on you.”
“No!” It was the vehemence of annoyance. “Well, he tried, but that’s not what made me start thinking about things more seriously and shit. He just sat me down on my birthday and said it was time — ‘long past time,’ he said, asshole — time for me to start taking responsibility and learning how to run things and whatever, and said I was going to have to start doing some shit around the estate if I wanted to keep doing everything I liked doing. So all that did was make me really pissed at him.”
“And your new duties included the purchase of domestic slaves?” When Sanosuke replied in the affirmative, Megumi pursued, “And that was how you first encountered the sovereignty agent?”
It was the same discernible twitch as before. Evidently Sanosuke really did have some significant agitation relating to this person, who must be the final witness they were waiting for and was probably delayed on official business. Kenshin congratulated himself on having been correct about the interest level of this assessment, and waited in great anticipation, rubbing at his overheated right thigh and shifting slightly away from the wood stove, to hear the rest of the story.
“Yeah,” Sanosuke said. “Yeah, that’s how I met him.”
“Describe how that happened, please.”
“I went to the slave market looking for a kitchen girl, but I saw this guy — Saitou, the agent, who of course I didn’t know was a sovvie then — and I decided to buy him instead.”
“Why did you decide to purchase someone completely different from the type of slave you needed?” Megumi asked.
“I really didn’t want to be there,” grumbled the accused, “especially since the slave market’s open so damn early so you have to go first thing in the morning to get the really good ones. But dad made it pretty clear I wouldn’t get any more money or get to do anything I wanted ever again if I didn’t do what he wanted. So I was really pissed at him. I figured if I bought some slave who was totally not what we needed, it’d show him I wasn’t the right choice for that job and he’d let me off it. Plus it might make him mad, so it was sorta revenge too. Also the slave was really fucking hot, so, you know…” Sanosuke cleared his throat, blushing, and his eyes strayed from Megumi’s face again.
“So you purchased what you believed to be a slave” — Megumi was shifting smoothly onto a new track, Kenshin could tell, though Sanosuke probably couldn’t — “with the express purpose of raping him.”
Sanosuke’s hands had been lying on the railing in front of him, occasionally sliding idly from side to side, but now they jerked back toward his body as he stiffened upward, looking appalled. “What?! No! Of course not!”
“You did just say,” Megumi pointed out calmly, “that one of your reasons for buying the slave was that he was ‘really fucking hot.'” Her coolness made the quoted profanity sound very childish indeed, and Sanosuke flushed a deeper shade of red from an apparent combination of emotions.
“I don’t rape slaves, all right? That’s something my asshole dad does, not me! I mean, I know it’s something a lot of people do, but not me!”
This, Kenshin reflected, though it could not be entirely verified, was consistent with the attitude the Shishio household slaves had displayed toward Sanosuke in their avowals.
“I won’t say I didn’t totally want to have sex with him or that wasn’t part of the reason I bought him, but I always ask. I’d never force someone — I told him he could say no and it wouldn’t be a problem.” Sanosuke’s voice dropped to a mumble as his hands came down on the railing again and his gaze fell to the floor. “And he seemed like he was totally fine with it.”
“In what way did Saitou indicate he was engaging in sex willingly?”
Pensiveness now seemed to overcome Sanosuke’s chagrin, and he appeared, as he slowly drew breath and opened his mouth to answer, as if he wasn’t sure his explanation would make sense to his listeners. “He seemed so strong and so in-control…” Distinct admiration rang in his timbre. “It felt like, if he didn’t want it, he would’ve definitely said so. He didn’t really seem like a slave at all, and after a while I couldn’t even think of him as one. Sure, I gave him a job to do, but he was more like… I don’t even know. I didn’t know he was a sovvie, but from the way he talked I did get the feeling there was something else going on — like he had a reason to be there besides just that I bought him and brought him there.”
“And since you’ve discovered he did have another reason to be there, have you considered that Saitou might only have accepted your sexual advances because he believed it would endanger his position or even his personal safety to refuse you?”
Hotly Sanosuke replied, “I told him he could say no!”
“You were in a position of absolute authority at the time, and he was in the position not only of a slave and someone who needed to maintain cover, but someone who had never met you and couldn’t be familiar with your personal policy regarding slave rape. Did that never occur to you?”
Sanosuke looked stricken. “I… no. Shit. No, I… never thought of that. I really… really… didn’t feel like it was… I thought it was all just fine at the time, but… shit…” His eyes broke from Megumi’s again, fixing on the floor, and in this instance they did not re-ascend.
With a tone infinitesimally more gentle than before, Megumi shifted the subject slightly. “How did your interaction with Saitou proceed from there?”
“I… well, I had no real job to give him,” Sanosuke told the floor, “so I made him just a sort of odd-jobs man to do whatever muscle-work anyone needed. There wasn’t a lot for him to do, so mostly he just ended up… in… in my room.” He hastened on in a faintly defensive tone, “But we talked a lot! It wasn’t like we were just having sex all the time.”
“And what did you talk about?”
“He would never want to talk about himself. Obviously that’s because he was a secret agent all along, but at the time I just figured a slave didn’t have a lot of interesting stuff to say about his own life. So we mostly talked about me, and how I grew up, and what I liked to do. Oh, and about dad and his work.” Sanosuke’s mouth tightened into a frown before he went on more slowly, “I guess…” This point seemed to be novelly occurring to him here and now. “I guess he got a lot of information out of me, actually. I couldn’t have helped him with details, but what I said probably told him what to investigate and where to look and shit.”
Kenshin repressed another smile. If the vague and rather hilarious information Sanosuke had given earlier about his father’s business was typical of his elaboration on the subject, it might not have actually been remarkably helpful to the sovereignty agent.
Megumi suggested next, “You seem to regret these interactions.”
With a faint sigh Sanosuke admitted, “Yeah, I guess I do. I was thinking before that we had some good times, and he had some important stuff to say to me, but I guess I was… always kindof a dick to him. I didn’t think it was rape, and I thought it made sense he didn’t talk about himself… but I was always the one in charge, and he probably couldn’t say no, and I just talked about myself on and on like a total ass.”
“You say he had important things to say to you?”
“It seemed important at the time.” Sanosuke shrugged, and the casual gesture did not nearly suffice to downplay words he obviously meant very intensely. “When he got to know what kind of life I always had, he had things to say…” He chuckled faintly and with a mixture of bitterness and appreciation. “He was fucking rude about it, but he always got his point across. He just made me kinda realize how I was wasting my life. I was already not really thinking of him as a slave, so that’s probably why I didn’t notice how weird it was that this supposed slave — who’d been a slave his whole life, supposedly! — knew so much about… life stuff.”
So that was the real reason Sanosuke had started ‘thinking about things more seriously and shit.’ Even from the brief description of their interactions, Kenshin could see what an impact this Saitou agent had made on the young man.
“Was it your inability to see Saitou as a slave that kept you from determining he was a spy?” was Megumi’s next question.
“Yeah, that was probably part of it.” Sanosuke scratched his head, appearing a little easier now they’d left behind the question of whether or not he had committed rape — especially on someone he obviously admired. “But also I didn’t want to ask him a bunch of questions in case I blew his cover. I knew he was up to something, and I kinda really wanted to see him do whatever he was there to do because I figured that’d be one in my dad’s eye.”
“So your attitude toward your father had not changed?”
“Actually it did change.” The young man’s brow furrowed as he recollected. “I kinda went from thinking of him as this mean old dad who was forcing me to do work and threatening to take away my allowance and shit to thinking more about how I grew up with this terrible person who probably kept me from being… something better, you know?”
Kenshin had a feeling he could guess at the origin of this alteration in attitude. It was a stroke of luck Sanosuke had run into someone that could cause that revolution in him when he had. Really, it was a stroke of luck that laziness and thoughtlessness were (to all appearances) the worst of Sanosuke’s bad traits, given the circumstances of his upbringing.
“But, yeah, as far as wanting to get back at my dad for whatever I was mad at him for? That didn’t change.”
“But you still didn’t question Saitou about his intentions?”
“Yeah, like I said, I didn’t want to ruin the plan. Whatever the plan was.”
“I wonder if you didn’t want to ruin your sexual arrangement with Saitou as well.”
To Kenshin, an experienced arbiter that had worked extensively with Megumi in the year and a half she’d been questioning at his assessments, it was obvious why she returned to this topic: though slave rape was a matter of hazy legality and Sanosuke had been unaware of the true identity of this supposed slave, still sexual assault of a sovereignty agent was serious — another potential crime for which Sanosuke might be condemned — and it was essential the issue be examined thoroughly.
But to Sanosuke this probably wasn’t nearly so evident. His eyes had previously, gradually returned to the questioner’s face and his expression had cleared somewhat, but at this latest statement his brows drew back together as his gaze fell once more. “Yeah, there was probably some of that too. I didn’t want to change things with him. I didn’t want to scare him off.”
“Given the way things turned out, do you wish now that you had questioned him?”
Sanosuke scraped a foot, at which he stared fixedly, back and forth on the wooden flooring of the platform. “I don’t really know. I’m afraid shit would have gone down just the same even if I had.”
“So you don’t consider yourself in any way responsible for your father becoming aware that Saitou was a spy?”
“He didn’t know Saitou was a spy–” Here Sanosuke interrupted himself impatiently in order to answer the actual question right in the middle of his protest– “no, I wasn’t responsible for that! — but if dad knew Saitou was a spy, I bet he would have just killed him right then.”
“Are you aware of your father having committed murder in the past?”
“Not for sure, but I wouldn’t put it past him.” Sanosuke’s voice grew somewhat distant. “Actually I always wondered, when my mom died… not right at the time, but later I wondered… did she maybe cheat on him, and he…” His shoulders lifted somewhat helplessly, and Kenshin guessed this dark speculation was one he’d never been able to put into words before. The most lazy, resentful teenager had certain lines he might not want to cross, even in his own mind, about his father.
“You may want to hold onto that thought,” Megumi remarked somewhat sardonically, “for when it’s your turn to give avowal at your father’s assessment.”
Sanosuke scowled, and, forcing the scribe to lean forward abruptly to catch what he had to say, grumbled something about maybe just completely refusing to show up, then fell into an unhappy silence. Kenshin doubted the young man looked forward to the referenced event, even if he knew the assessment of Makoto would be little more than nominal, a last courtesy offered to someone already condemned in all but the final legal sense and doomed to high-security imprisonment for the rest of his life.
“But to return to the compromise of Saitou’s situation,” Megumi went on. “How exactly did that happen, if you had no part in it?”
“‘Exactly‘ is tough,” Sanosuke admitted. “I just noticed one morning that I couldn’t find Saitou anywhere, and I kinda wanted… to find him… so I was wandering around looking, and my dad noticed and called me into his room. He asked me what I knew about Saitou — called him ‘that slave you’ve been fucking’ all annoyed — so I told him — and it was totally true! — that I didn’t really know anything about his past. Of course I knew a lot about Saitou personally by then, but I knew that wasn’t what dad wanted, so I didn’t bother saying that. Anyway, dad said he noticed Saitou could read (which I never noticed because I was too busy ordering him around and talking about myself like a little shit), but of course dad got suspicious.”
That such a revelation would render a person like Makoto suspicious made sense, Kenshin reflected. In a house-slave, a certain degree of literacy might not be totally unheard-of; but in the type of person Kenshin was envisioning based on the description given of this agent thus far — probably someone, in the eyes of a slave-owner, pretty distinctly intended for manual labor — the ability to read would seem decidedly out of place. And anything out of place might set off alarms in the head of a paranoid traitor to the sovereignty.
“He said he wanted to question Saitou — whatever that actually meant — so of course I was starting to freak out a little bit on the inside. But he was going away on business for a couple days and couldn’t put it off, so he couldn’t get to questioning Saitou right away. He said he already had him locked up, and he needed to stay that way — with a guard — and I wasn’t allowed to see him.”
Just as locks and guards came up in the avowal, Kenshin noticed the sentinel at the inner door step aside and allow a man to enter the room. At Kaoru’s nod of acknowledgment Kenshin had to assume this was the agent, Saitou, their final witness and a significant part of this interesting drama; so he said nothing as the newcomer silently passed rows of benches standing empty at this private assessment and took a seat at the end of one in front. Sanosuke, his back to the door and apparently having missed the overseer’s nod, had noticed none of this.
Megumi was asking, “Do you believe your father ordered you not to contact Saitou while he was gone because he was suspicious of you as well?”
“Nah, I don’t think so. Dad was just trying to get back at me for having Saitou around in the first place. We’d already had this big argument about me buying a slave just for… uh, personal reasons… instead of what we actually needed, and he wasn’t any less pissed about it at this point… but I think it was just the usual ‘why can’t you take life seriously?’ bullshit, not him thinking I was working with Saitou on some secret mission or something.”
“And did you obey your father in this instance?”
“Hell, no! The second he was gone, I went straight to see Saitou. I was trying to think of a way to get him out of there, but I didn’t have any ideas that weren’t totally crazy, and he didn’t have any ideas either, and I was really frustrated… I told him I was sorry, since it was basically my fault for buying a slave just because he was really hot and to annoy my dad… Saying sorry didn’t fucking help, but it was all I could do for him right then. Well, I mean, besides…” Sanosuke cleared his throat.
Kenshin rather expected Megumi to probe further into this latest implication of sexual activity, but what she asked instead was, “Your father had left him under guard?”
Sanosuke scowled. “This guy Usui, who’s worked for my dad for a while — he’s this asshole thug — he was guarding the room when I got there, and even though I supposedly wasn’t supposed to see Saitou, Usui let me in pretty easy. I didn’t think that was weird at first because I was distracted, but later I did wonder why he did that. Only then, as soon as his guard shift was over, he showed up in my room saying he wanted to make a deal.”
Sanosuke’s lip curled in distaste and discomfort. “He knew me and Saitou were fucking. I mean, it probably didn’t help that… Well, anyway, he figured I might be willing to do something for him if he agreed to help Saitou escape.”
“Do what for him?”
“Um, basically… fuck him too.”
Megumi looked a little taken aback. “Why?”
Sanosuke flushed. “You don’t have to make it sound like it’s impossible to imagine or something.” At these words, one of the guards that stood a couple of steps behind the witness’ platform was forced to turn an inadvertent laugh into a cough. Kenshin noticed Kaoru giving the man a reproving look.
“What I mean,” Megumi said composedly, “is that allowing a prisoner to escape would be a dangerous risk for this Usui to take. Why would he jeopardize his position working for your father for the sake of sex?”
“You have to understand…” Again Sanosuke looked as if he feared this explanation might be a little beyond him. “Usui’s always wanted dad’s business. Not just like he wanted to work for him; he wanted to take his place. He probably knew my dad was doing illegal stuff, and he wanted to be doing it himself, I guess. Anyway, the weird thing was that dad always knew what Usui wanted, so I never could figure out why he kept him around — friends close and enemies closer and all that, I guess? So Usui could never do anything open to try to get some advantage over my dad; he had to do sneaky shit.”
“And he would have believed sleeping with Makoto’s son would give him leverage in the future?”
“Yeah.”
“All right.” Megumi nodded her understanding. “But why would you believe such an obviously untrustworthy person would keep his end of any bargain?”
“I didn’t really have any choice!” protested Sanosuke. “I couldn’t just let my dad do whatever he was going to do; I had to try something. And, I mean, I have… a lot of sex… most of the time, so what was a little more if it might help with something? And, hell, it did end up working, didn’t it?”
“Did it?”
“Well, yeah, he did keep his end of the deal, didn’t he?” Sanosuke’s expression gradually became pensive. “Actually that’s kinda weird, now I think about it. He really isn’t the kind of guy to keep a deal like that… but since he did, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?”
In order to allow her to draw out information as effectively as possible, Megumi, like any questioner, was given an overview of events relevant to an assessment prior to interrogating witnesses. And Kenshin could tell now that what she’d just heard did not entirely tally with what she’d known before entering the hall today. As usual, however, surprise was absent from her voice as she wondered, “Usui himself told you he had released Saitou?”
“Actually I haven’t seen Usui since then. I figured he was keeping his head down until after dad got back so one of the other guards could take the blame for Saitou escaping. They were really freaking out, too, when it turned out Saitou was gone — one of ’em ran away, and I really couldn’t blame him. And then the second dad came home, the whole place was just suddenly swarming with sovvies, like they knew exactly when he was going to be back, and we were all arrested. But, yeah, if you need me at Usui’s assessment — he is getting assessed, right? — I can tell you everything I know about him.”
In direct contrast to how he’d reacted to the idea of making avowal at his father’s assessment, Sanosuke seemed to be taking a grim pleasure at the thought of disclosing everything he knew about someone he disliked so much more straightforwardly. And there was a touch of tightness around his mouth, a tilt to his brows, a fleeting haunted look in his eyes that he seemed to be trying his best to hide, indicating (to Kenshin, at least) that, no matter how bravely he’d implied this encounter had merely been an additional instance of something he had quite a lot of, he was more distressed about his interactions with Usui than he was letting on verbally.
If Megumi had also noticed how much Sanosuke had really suffered by fulfilling his part of the bargain he’d made, still she chose to wrap things up and not pursue the matter. And when the questioner had declared herself finished with the accused, Kaoru took over by wondering whether the arbiter had anything to ask.
Kenshin smiled at her. Both she and Megumi could probably tell how engrossed he was in this assessment — for one thing, he hadn’t made a single request regarding the nearby overhot stove — just as he could read Megumi’s little reactions of surprise and the outrage Kaoru had been subtly evincing about the Usui business. He shook his head.
Kaoru nodded again, then turned back to Sanosuke. “The sovereignty thanks you for your avowal, Sanosuke of lineage Shishio. You may take your previous place.” She gestured to where Sanosuke’s escort still stood behind the platform.
Though he’d clearly been depressed by several items brought up during his avowal, and though he appeared understandably wearied by the ordeal, the young man’s energy of movement didn’t seem to have decreased; he hopped down the single step and turned with alacrity to face the guards that had come to meet him. Kenshin had been watching meticulously for how Sanosuke would react to his first sight of Saitou since before his arrest, what might happen when their eyes met, but the seat Saitou had taken was to the right of the platform, and Sanosuke had stepped down on the left and again entirely missed his presence in the room.
He could not long remain in ignorance, however, as Kaoru next said, “Our final witness will please step onto the platform.”
Even had Kenshin not been specifically observing, he doubted he could have failed to catch sight of Sanosuke stumbling abruptly on his way back to the open space where the accused and his escort stood and then turning in a movement that incorporated a deep breath and a significant stiffening of spine. Sanosuke still could not meet Saitou’s eyes, however, since the agent, having taken his place on the witness’ platform, now faced away from him.
As the assessment proceeded, Kenshin divided his attention between the final witness and the accused. Saitou took the Oath of Honesty, and in doing so immediately displayed a disposition seemingly the polar opposite of Sanosuke’s: perfectly composed, with no emotions tied up in this business whatsoever. And he wasn’t what Kenshin would have described as ‘really fucking hot.’ Of course Kenshin had little interest in men — the elegant questioner or the lively assessment overseer were more his speed — but even by his admittedly vague standards of what made a man attractive he found this one a little too harsh. But there was no accounting for taste.
“To begin,” Megumi was saying, “for clarity: you are an agent of the sovereignty transferred here from another location in order to investigate Makoto and his business dealings.”
“That is correct,” replied Saitou.
“You had arranged to pose as a slave in order to enter Makoto’s household, because you had some information that led you to believe he would be inclined to buy you.”
“Yes. The scar on my chest, which would be visible on a slavers’ platform, would draw associations with an old enemy of Makoto’s. We believed he would not be able to resist purchasing me.”
Kenshin noticed Sanosuke nodding slowly as if this information, though he hadn’t put its pieces together before, added up to a reasonable conclusion.
“But in fact,” Megumi pointed out, “it was Makoto’s son who purchased you. Do you believe it was a coincidence that Sanosuke had taken over the task of buying household slaves just at the time you were planted in the slave market?”
“Yes, I do.” Saitou’s demeanor made Megumi’s seem warm and casual by contrast.
“Sanosuke tells us that when he brought you home and sexually propositioned you, he indicated you had the option of refusing. Is that true?”
With a curt nod Saitou replied immediately, “He made it as clear as someone in his position at the time possibly could.”
“Would you have felt safe rejecting Sanosuke’s advances?”
Here, Kenshin was interested to note — though he couldn’t be entirely sure he wasn’t imagining it — Saitou hesitated briefly before answering, “No. I would have believed doing so would endanger my position in the household.”
A quick glance at Sanosuke showed a stricken expression so poignant as to infect Kenshin somewhat with its sudden misery. And guaranteeing the continuance of that unhappiness, Megumi persisted on the dreary topic by asking Saitou, “Do you believe Sanosuke took advantage of you?”
Saitou frowned, and spoke in a pensive tone that, though as cool as before, held a touch of darkness. “Slavery has allowed mankind new and more incisive ways to objectify and abuse each other. Even the best master treats a slave differently than he treats any free man, whether he realizes it or not. No one who has not acted as a slave can realize the layers of oppression that can be inflicted on one human by another, nor how humans change when they are put into the positions of master and slave. It’s a system the sovereignty would do well to examine closely in the near future.”
It was such a lengthy and unexpectedly moralizing answer that everyone stared at him in silence for a moment. Then Megumi gave her head a tiny shake and said, “I wonder if you aren’t trying to avoid the question.”
“I apologize,” Saitou replied dryly, “if I got a little too philosophical.” Much more bluntly he continued, “I believe I took advantage of him by cultivating a relationship under entirely false pretenses and using him for information.”
Watching Sanosuke, Kenshin believed he could pinpoint the exact instant of heartbreak — during the last syllable of ‘entirely false pretenses’ — and felt his own heart go out to the young man. It was a shame Saitou never looked around and saw the face of the accused, on which rampant emotions played as openly as children on a lawn.
Kenshin also noted, however, that Saitou, for all his cool bluntness, had still avoided the actual question Megumi had asked. He probably did believe some advantage had been taken, and now had deliberately eschewed specifically saying so — Kenshin didn’t think it was mere wishfulness on Sanosuke’s behalf that made him believe it — in order to spare the accused the pain of the admission. Whether that would have hurt more or less than ‘entirely false pretenses,’ Kenshin wasn’t sure.
Megumi seemed satisfied, at least for the short term, on the point of whether or not Saitou had been sexually assaulted, for she moved on to another part of his interaction with Sanosuke. “Is it true that Sanosuke was not responsible for the betrayal of your intentions to Makoto?”
“Yes, it is true. That was a slip of my own.”
“And did Sanosuke contact you during your imprisonment in an attempt to determine a way to free you?” When Saitou confirmed this as well, she went on. “Sanosuke reported that neither of you had any idea how you might be able to escape your confinement; yet you were able to escape soon thereafter, so clearly you did have some idea.” Saitou nodded. “Was it because you didn’t trust him that you didn’t confide your plans in him at that time?”
Kenshin, accustomed to seeing the story of events twist and evolve as it passed through various witnesses at an assessment, was not disturbed or surprised at hearing a slightly different account of Saitou’s escape from the Shishio estate than Sanosuke had presented. But Sanosuke was looking distinctly confused, and that expression only intensified as Saitou answered, “No, not because I didn’t trust him. It was because I believed it would be safer if he were not involved in my escape attempt.”
“Then you were unaware,” Megumi suggested, “of the bargain Sanosuke was making with Usui.”
“I was unaware.” Now there was a discernible, if still minimal, hint of emotion, of tightness, in Saitou’s words and bearing. He had never once looked around at Sanosuke, but at this moment Kenshin believed a certain muscular tendency indicated he would like to. “I was unaware of that,” he repeated stonily, “until just now at this assessment. If I had known of Usui’s intentions, I would have escaped and killed him much earlier than I did.”
Abruptly Sanosuke seemed to understand how things had really happened, and it might only have been possible to detangle the mess of emotions on his face with a decent stretch of time and some fine tools. It looked as if he might burst out with some surprised and unhappy exclamation, contrary to the rules of the assessment hall that forbade witnesses not on the platform from speaking, but he managed to control himself, and the mouth he’d opened snapped back into miserable closure.
Kenshin got the feeling Megumi wanted to be done with this; she probably felt the dreary atmosphere emanating from Sanosuke as well as the arbiter did. “You spent nearly a month in the Shishio estate,” she said to Saitou, “and must have become fairly well acquainted with Sanosuke and his lifestyle. Do you believe Sanosuke had any connection with his father’s illegal dealings?”
“No, I don’t believe it. Sanosuke has merely been lazy and useless and a waste of significant potential for most of his life, not actually criminal. In fact, whether he intended it or was even aware of it, he assisted in my investigations and should be commended.” Though this statement was spoken with the same lack of hesitancy as most of Saitou’s statements, it was also even more coldly professional, and Kenshin could tell Sanosuke drew very little comfort from the proposed commendation. It was evident, moreover, that Sanosuke believed Saitou had no personal interest in him and regarded him only as a facet of a job he’d been busy with that was now about ready to wrap up.
Whether or not Megumi, like Kenshin, remained far less convinced than Sanosuke was, she now turned to Kaoru and declared herself finished questioning this witness. And Kaoru wondered formally, as before, if Kenshin had anything he wanted to ask.
Kenshin stared at Saitou for a moment, and came to the conclusion that it was unlikely he had any clearer idea of the situation that Sanosuke did. He hadn’t been present for the more emotional parts of Sanosuke’s avowal, hadn’t even looked him in the face this entire time; and Sanosuke’s described behavior during their near month together had been very… frivolous… certainly nothing to indicate his interest in Saitou had been anything beyond physical, casual, transient — and that in a context of master and slave not easily translatable into normal interaction.
Saitou didn’t know what a difference he’d made in Sanosuke’s way of thinking. He didn’t know that what Sanosuke had done in an attempt to free him had been a real and deliberate sacrifice rather than the throwaway action the young man had implied it was. He didn’t know Sanosuke had never really been able to see him as a slave — especially given that, based on Saitou’s comment, ‘Even the best master treats a slave differently than he treats any free man, whether he realizes it or not,’ that perception of Sanosuke’s had not been strong enough to be plainly demonstrable.
Kenshin, having leaned far toward ‘completely ingenuous’ and away from ‘extremely convincing actor,’ fully planned on declaring Sanosuke innocent of the crime of complicity in his father’s treason. He wouldn’t even need to spend his mandatory ten minutes considering the matter; rather, he could concentrate on cooling down his right side for a bit. He did consider Sanosuke guilty of some misconduct in his sexual relationship with Saitou, but that behavior, Kenshin was sure, arose from an ignorance and thoughtlessness that Sanosuke was at least on his way to relinquishing. Besides, Saitou had clearly reached a philosophical breakthrough regarding the system of slavery and the treatment of slaves during his time posing as one, so it wasn’t impossible that Sanosuke might have some assistance in considering matters of authority and consent.
And Sanosuke would need assistance in more than that. He’d just had his entire attitude about life turned upside-down, been arrested for and accused of treason and displaced from his longtime home in the process, had his father (whatever his father might be to him) exposed as the worst of men and finally come to terms with his own suspicions about him, and discovered that he himself might be a rapist and was probably at least, as he’d put it, ‘a total ass.’ He needed someone strong and steady and wise in his life right now, and Kenshin had a pretty good idea who that person could be.
If those two ever actually spoke to each other again. Given the level of misconception Kenshin believed he currently observed between them, he wouldn’t be surprised if they went their separate ways from this hall and became little more than bitter memories in each other’s lives.
But what was an arbiter for if not the prevention of such gross injustice?
“I do have a question for you,” Kenshin said, fixing Saitou with a calm but penetrating gaze. “And I would like to remind you, before I ask, that you have taken the Oath of Honesty.”
Saitou looked wary. “Of course.”
“What,” Kenshin wondered in a friendly tone, “are your precise feelings toward the accused at this time?”
There was a long silence during which Saitou’s narrowed eyes remained locked with Kenshin’s, and the arbiter feared the witness might attempt to refuse to answer. Of course if Saitou believed Sanosuke had been doing nothing more than enjoying casual and convenient sex with a perceived slave, he would feel pathetic admitting to any deeper sensibilities. No one liked declaring unrequited love, and the strength to be completely open about something so personal, something that could be turned so easily into a weapon in callous hands, was not one everybody possessed.
But Saitou rallied with a nearly invisible breath and squaring of shoulders. He kept hold of Kenshin’s gaze with his eyes as if it were a lifeline and stated, in just as indifferent a tone as he’d used for anything else he’d said here today, “I have developed an emotional attachment to the accused that, though I can’t call it ‘love’ at this time, is more than friendship and certainly more than I would feel for someone I was merely using to further my investigative efforts.”
A choking sound issued from where Sanosuke stood, but Kenshin was not looking in that direction; he’d felt it more courteous to maintain that eye contact Saitou so clearly needed to make his declaration. Now he gave a slight smile. “Thank you,” he said, and stood, making an automatic and almost unconscious movement away from the wood stove as he did so. “I will withdraw to deliberate, and return with my arbitration in no less than ten minutes’ time.” As Saitou twitched slightly toward the step down from the witness’ platform — on the side away from Sanosuke, of course — Kenshin added, “Please remain where you are until I return.”
Saitou nodded, and stood very still and stiff where he was without looking around. Kenshin met first Megumi’s eye and then Kaoru’s as he turned for the door into his cloister, and each gave him a subtle smile of her own. They knew him too well; they must be aware both of what he’d been aiming for out here and what he planned on saying when he came back.
The arbiter’s cloister was normally unpleasantly chilly at this time of year, but today it was a nice change after the wood stove. Kenshin closed the door behind him and stretched his arms and back, rolling his shoulders and yawning. Then he drew out his pocket-watch to begin counting down.
He hadn’t arbitrated such an interesting assessment in quite a while; and he felt that when, ten minutes from now, he returned into the hall and declared Sanosuke innocent of all criminal behavior at this time, and dismissed both the accused and the final witness to go about their business simultaneously, he would have done a good day’s work.
I’ve rated this story 
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It started with a feeling out of nowhere that she should omit the green onions, and she laughed at the unexpected strength of the impression as she removed the vegetables from the thin produce-section bag and set them on the cutting board. She liked green onions, and part of the reason she’d even decided to try this recipe was the anticipated combination of these with chicken broth and soy. And yet, as she reached for a knife to begin chopping and raise the crisp smell, she was struck yet again with the bizarrely strong thought that she would like this concoction better without green onions.
She tended to prefer trying recipes as they were written, and deviate the next time only if she’d found some element specifically inhibiting her enjoyment of the finished product. There was no reason to strike green onions from this lineup her first time through; it would be silly and slapdash. But now with each crunching contact between knife and cutting board, the idea reiterated itself more emphatically and with more detail. Green onions were a bad addition to this recipe. She wouldn’t like their texture here. They wouldn’t keep well if she wanted to freeze some of this for work lunches. Better to save these ones she was chopping for the enchiladas.
Finally her hands stilled, and she let out another laugh more puzzled than the previous. What was this, chef’s intuition or something? Had her subconscious decided she was an expert master of the kitchen all of a sudden, for it to be throwing these baseless ideas at her? Well, if she was so determined, on some level or other, not to have green onions in this soup, who was she to argue with herself? With a shrug she finished chopping them and then swept them into a Tupperware container for enchilada use later.
In the next room, Goldie started barking. Cathy turned down her cooking music a trifle and went to see what that was about. Before she had traversed even the short distance from the kitchen to the living room, however, the answer came to her: Goldie had seen a rabbit out the window and lost her head.
Cathy paused. She’d managed to curb her pomeranian’s urge to bark at every single thing in the world, but rabbits, for some reason (perhaps because they were just Goldie’s size) were more than the dog could tolerate in silence. Therefore, that Goldie was currently protesting the presence of a rabbit minding its own business out in the bushes in front of the apartment was not only a perfectly natural assumption, but really the only assumption. But Cathy hadn’t assumed. She knew Goldie was reacting to a rabbit as surely as if she’d already seen it; in fact, much in the style of a memory, she felt as if she had seen it: white tail, ragged grey-brown body, round at rest and scrawny in motion…
With a bemused smile, she went to fetch her dog off the back of the sofa. “Come on, Golden Crust, time to shut up.” The glance she cast toward the night-dark outdoors revealed no lagomorphic invaders, but it didn’t really matter.
Goldie twisted in Cathy’s arms to try to keep looking out the window, but she’d stopped barking as soon as she’d been lifted from her perch. Cathy filled the absence of yapping by singing along with the song that was playing in the kitchen, into which she carried her pet. There, she distracted Goldie with some little bits of chicken before leaving her on the floor under the table, turning the music back up so she could sing louder herself, and getting back to her recipe.
Her vocalization faded, however, in the middle of what would otherwise have been a particularly satisfying held note, when she knew that Celine Dion’s The Reason, one of her favorite pieces to accompany by one of her favorite artists to imitate, would be playing next.
Now she was frowning. She turned from her barely resumed cooking endeavors to stare up at the iPod docking station on top of her refrigerator. All conjured visual details aside, knowing about the rabbit was one, fairly explicable thing. But this? The mix was on shuffle, as usual, so there was no way she could know what would play next. The chances of guessing were one in about six hundred — worse than that, really, since she didn’t even remember everything on there.
For the full minute and a half or so that remained of the current song she stared, motionless, at the red iPod that looked disproportionately small between its accessory speakers, while Goldie hindlegged up toward her knee to request more chicken. Only when the strings, piano, and synthy-sounding brass thing that started next had turned center stage over to the pensive voice of Celine Dion did Cathy turn her own pensive attention to her dog.
“Goldie,” she said, “how did I know that?” She bent and lifted the pomeranian to face level and repeated, as her nose was licked, “How did I know that, Goldie Gold Rush?” After kissing the top of the little head, she replaced the dog on the floor. “No more chicken right now, baby.”
Goldie did a jumping wiggle dance in a full circle around Cathy, then ran out into the living room again. Cathy, meanwhile, threw another glance at her iPod — and the aural equivalent of a glance at Celine Dion — before trying to focus once more on her late dinner preparations. “Baby, you know what I mean,” she sang along experimentally, and then fell silent, frowning again.
How had she known what song would play next? How had she known what Goldie was freaking out about? How had she known not to put green onions in her soup? Why was she suddenly knowing things without having to go through the usual steps of finding out?
The intense scrutiny she’d been giving the recipe since turning back to it had led nowhere, as the decision on how to alter the preparation steps to accommodate the lack of green onions had been put off by her wondering how she knew what she knew. Now the decision was further postponed when a jumbled set of information, like a handful of colorful beads that hadn’t necessarily all broken from the same necklace, came to her just as the previous knowledge had. In this instance, however, she believed — no, she knew that the idea — if such an incohesive collection of thoughts could be called that — had arrived specifically in answer to her question.
“What is all this?” she wondered pensively as she went about her mental examination. Individually, the little bits were fairly understandable; some, like the rabbit, were precise enough to call up or even provide a visual in her head. In brief vignettes that faded in and then out she saw faces, and with each came a concise encapsulation of how she felt about the person (though for the last it was merely the awareness that she didn’t know him). And they, in combination, had somehow prompted or led to this thing that was happening. So far, so clear.
This clarity provided little assistance, however. What exactly did her elderly next-door neighbor, her co-workers, her newly discovered relative, and some spiky-haired guy she’d never met have to do with this odd experience she was suddenly having? She couldn’t think of anything in common among the five of them.
“Emily, Heero, Dorothy, Trowa, some guy I’ve never met,” she said contemplatively, then repeated it twice more in a sing-song chant of curiosity as she started giving specific thought to each.
Emily was a funny old lady that lived in #9 with her chihuahua. The latter liked to play with (and to some extent bully) Goldie when their humans met at or on the way to the nearby dog park, but accepted his mistress’s fond remonstrances about his overbearing behavior, worded as if to another human, with surprising obedience. Always having been fond of Emily, Cathy sometimes took her dinner or lent a hand with her chores.
Heero was a decent guy that generally just wanted to be left alone and do his job, an attitude Cathy respected even if she did prefer a touch more social interaction than he seemed to. He’d had a difficult time lately, what with the unpleasant behavior of one of his few friends and the sales team’s seeming obsession with the matter. So far there had been very little Cathy could do to help, other than try to put a damper on any gossipy conversation she happened to have any influence over at work so as to spare both Heero and Duo the discomfort of hearing Quatre endlessly speculated about.
Dorothy was not a bad manager, despite sometimes coming across a little like a puppeteer entertaining herself rather than an audience by trying to whip up the most interesting possible interactions among those under her charge — which was the reason, as Cathy had overheard Heero speculating just yesterday, she was considering having Duo train with Wufei. Dorothy was somewhat strange, even without taking those eyebrows into account, and always had an air about her of knowing more than she was saying. Perhaps she too, then, sometimes knew things she had no rational way of knowing.
And Trowa… Trowa was, for all practical purposes, still a stranger. He and Cathy had determined their relationship, at that chance first meeting in Quatre’s office, by tracing their lines back to shared great-great grandparents Sinead Barton and her common-law husband Walter Young, and there was very little rhyme or reason to the closeness Cathy seemed to feel with such a distant relation she’d talked to for a few hours at most. Ever since she’d met him, she’d had this somewhat inexplicable desire to help and comfort him, almost as if he were one of her actual brothers rather than a previously unknown cousin to the fourth degree. Maybe this unprecedented sense of family had something to do with this unprecedented trickle of improbable knowledge… though she couldn’t imagine what.
Even in the midst of wondering about tonight’s strange business, she still managed to hope Trowa was doing all right. If Heero was having a hard time with Quatre’s predicament, Quatre’s boyfriend must be even more unhappy — especially since Quatre’s problems seemed to date back to that fight Trowa had mentioned they’d had the day she’d first met him. She wondered how Trowa was handling the disappearance.
In answer — once again, she knew it was in answer to her concerned curiosity — she got a sense of Trowa that took her breath away. Without knowing how she could possibly be so certain, she was aware all of a sudden that Trowa, this very moment, was suffering deeply. She could almost see his pale, freckled face, half shadowed by its concealing fall of hair in the darkness of some dimly lit place, concentrated in despair and helplessness. No, there was no ‘almost;’ she did see it, briefly but clearly. Trowa was at a park somewhere, beside a grove of trees, standing stone-still and hurting.
Cathy made a mournful sound as she tried to reorient herself to the things around her, remind herself where she still was. “Sorry, but you’re distracting,” she said to the iPod as she moved to turn off the music above the refrigerator entirely. Then, just as sluggishly, she started to put away the soup components. She wouldn’t be finishing this tonight; it was a little late, thanks to the shopping she’d done immediately after work, for dinner anyway, and suddenly she was peculiarly devoid of appetite.
She still had no idea why she was knowing and seeing what she was. Something strange had started, for some reason, had entered her life without warning, and thus far she seemed to have little or no control over it. Would it continue?
Yes, it would.
Would it improve?
Yes, the beginning was always the most grotesque and difficult to deal with, the time when manifestations were unbidden and unbiddable.
“Well, that’s good to know!” she said with a nod.
Possibly, though, none of this mattered at the moment. After all, if it was going to continue and it was going to get better, she had time and optimism on her side. Others might not have such happy resources.
Continuing her tidying efforts one-handed, she pulled out her phone and called Trowa.
After two rings she guessed, “His phone is off;” after three, “He doesn’t have it with him;” and after four, “He doesn’t want to talk to anyone;” but when Trowa actually answered, with the deadest-sounding greeting she’d ever heard, she said in facetious triumph, “Ah! There you are!”
He made no reply, so she went on. “Since you aren’t willing to call your cousin when you need cheering up, your cousin has to bring the cheering up to you.”
“Cathy. That’s so kind of you.” He didn’t ask how she’d known he needed cheering up. It was probably a pretty consistent need lately. “Today has been… bad.” There was in his voice, immediately under the dullness and lack of energy, a sound of something agitated and miserable pent up and building.
“On top of everything else lately?” she commiserated. “I’m sorry!”
“Just now I had to overhear an argument that led to romance, and I couldn’t stand it. They didn’t remind me at all of myself and Quatre, but romance two doors down was too much for me; I couldn’t stay to hear any more of it.”
“Of course you couldn’t.”
“It was foolish of me to come here, though.” He said it more to himself than to her. “Quatre and I came to this park the first night I met him, for a few minutes, and… I haven’t seen him in a week.” His volume rose slightly. “I believe most people could easily last a week, but I…”
“You miss him and you’re worried,” Cathy supplied. It felt as if Trowa needed to confide in someone, needed to pour out in full whatever was weighing him down. Would he have sought anyone to hold this therapeutic conversation with if she hadn’t called?
No, absolutely not.
Well, it was a damn good thing this silly knowing-things thing had started tonight rather than tomorrow, then.
“Quatre is one of the most important parts of my life,” was Trowa’s quiet response. “Before I met him, I was… for so long… for so many years…”
He was only about Cathy’s age; how many years could he possibly have spent in the state he was beginning to describe?
The answer was no exact number, but it was very distinctly a startlingly larger span of years than Cathy had been expecting (and she was getting to the point where she was beginning to expect these answers to some, at least, of her questions). Breathless, she continued listening as the anticipated outpouring seemed to build momentum:
“I did something terrible once, something that separated me from the rest of the world and put me into a world of my own where the only thing I could do was work to make amends. There was nothing else in my life. Nothing else existed to me. Just trying to fix what I had done wrong.”
Wondering what Trowa could have done that was bad enough to be described in such terms, Cathy got the feeling Duo had been involved somehow — and that it had, indeed, been very bad.
“It’s over now. The problem is solved, though I didn’t have much to do with its solution. And Quatre is… I can hardly describe it… he was the first part of the real world to come into my world — my little, miserable world that was all about penance and had no room in it for anything that would make me happy — and try to pull me out, now that I can come out. He’s not just someone I love because of his personality; he is the entire world to me. He represents everything that exists outside of those 87 years and all the unhappiness and the person I was for all that time.”
There it was. 87 years. Trowa probably hadn’t meant to mention that exact, mind-boggling number, but, lost now in his cathartic monologue, might have forgotten whom he was talking to.
“He wouldn’t want to hear me say that I can’t live without him, but I can’t live without him. I don’t mean that I’ll die if he doesn’t come home or if we can’t find him; I mean that what people consider ‘really living’ is impossible for me as I am now without him. Even with the curse broken, I would still be trapped in that other little world, I would still be that other, miserable half person if Quatre hadn’t pulled me out.”
A broken curse, was it? ‘Magic,’ then, Cathy supposed, was the word she wanted to describe this night, utterly incredible as that seemed. And actually she was accepting it remarkable calmly — maybe with this improbable knowledge thing that seemed to be her share in the supernatural came a heightened ability to accept the things she improbably knew.
“And every day he’s not here, I feel like I’m slipping back, losing ground. I’ve been working on becoming more my own person and an active part of the real world, but I’m not strong enough to stand on my own. I’ve made resolutions, and I’m trying just as Quatre wants me to, but I’m not there yet. I need him. I don’t want to depend on him, I don’t want to be a burden on him, and I think, with his help, someday I’ll be beyond needing him — but I’ll never be beyond wanting him around or loving him. And right now I do still need him, and I miss him for that and every other reason.”
Sounds like you could do with some psychiatric help, cousin, she didn’t say aloud. He was probably well enough aware of that.
“And listening to these people tonight talking about their relationship and how it should be changed by one of them being in love with the other… I said it didn’t remind me at all of Quatre and myself, but in some ways it did — just the fact that it was two people connecting like that, and talking about the ways they work together, and what their future should be. It made me miss Quatre so much… it was just such bad timing…”
And then, after he’d further tormented himself by leaving for a place that would only remind him more of Quatre, the state of the night’s timing had somehow reversed when Catharine had called at precisely the right moment to trigger this outpouring of thoughts and feelings that would probably otherwise have remained unproductively dammed up behind Trowa’s habitually tight lips. And that had only taken place because her weird knowing-things power (was it a power? Yes) had only started to manifest, in some kind of unexpected awakening, at precisely the right moment to prompt her to think about Trowa and sense his needy despair.
Was some supernatural hand guiding this process? God? Fate? Some magical overlord? Or had Trowa’s plight, perhaps, spurred his cousin’s new spiritual development? Or was it all, including the miraculous moment at which it had happened, merely an unthinkable coincidence?
To these questions, unfortunately, there came no answer.
Meanwhile, Trowa continued to pour out his heart. “Because it wouldn’t even have been so disturbing to overhear if, earlier today, just today, I hadn’t found out that Quatre may be in danger. We thought he was hiding; we thought it was simple. He’s the kindest person in the world, so of course we believed he doesn’t want to face anyone while he’s possessed and acting so unkindly to everyone — it was horrible to think of him going through that alone, but it made sense.”
Possessed?? To a list that included living for 87 years and still looking 25, knowing things with no way of knowing them, and invoking and breaking curses, Cathy added demonic influence. No wonder their projected completion date kept getting pushed out!
“But earlier I discovered that he sent a dangerous email that may have gotten him kidnapped. I know he’s not dead, but I haven’t been able to find out anything more than that yet — not where he is or how he’s doing or what kind of trouble he might be in. I was never very good at divination, but I’m unforgivably bad at it since my drop in power.”
Cathy filed away the very useful word ‘divination,’ which it would have taken her some time to come up with on her own, while pitying Trowa thoroughly for considering a lack of natural talent in some area ‘unforgivable’ simply because it would have been a useful skill in a certain situation. She just wanted to hug him. Feed him some chocolate, maybe.
“My computer was destroyed in the fire, so I have to sneak into Quatre’s room and use his just to access the internet. I’m more helpless than ever. I thought before that this is a little like all that time I spent trying to find Duo, but now it’s almost worse. I can barely divine anything, I have no computer, I’m not ready to trade favors yet, and the person I’ve been counting on to help me become effective and self-sufficient in some area other than surviving to see the curse broken is the person who’s possessed, missing, and possibly in serious trouble with a moon-worshiping cult that contains at least a fire commander and a brainwashing communicator.”
Even as she added brainwashing and the ability to command fire to the list she’d mentally headed ‘Magic That Exists,’ Cathy noted that this seemed to be the end of the rant. She hadn’t interjected at any point, wanting neither to break Trowa’s flow nor to remind him that he was talking to someone supposedly unfamiliar with the supernatural life he seemed to be so deeply entrenched in. Now she tried to think of something to say.
Before she could, however, he cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said in the placid tone she was more familiar with, though he also sounded somewhat embarrassed, as if he’d just come out of a deep reverie and remembered she was on the line. “I don’t know what made me go on like that.”
She did. She didn’t understand why it had started when it had started, but the consummate timing had been everything.
“Probably the majority of that made no sense,” he went on, “and you believe I’m crazy now, but…” There was no mistaking his sincerity as he finished, “thank you for listening.”
Listening had clearly been key. Useful as some of his statements had been to her, with what was happening to her tonight, he hadn’t really needed her to understand most of what he’d said. The mere opportunity to say it to a sympathetic listener seemed to have been invaluable to him.
“I’m happy to listen to my crazy cousin any time,” she answered lightly. “But Trowa…” Despite the greatest benefit having been drawn merely from her open ear presenting itself at just the right time, she felt that what she was about to say would form a capstone to that, and be of no little importance. “Please remember that you and Quatre both have other friends! Other people care about you and want to see you be the person you want to be, and other people care about Quatre and want to see him safe. You’re not alone, even without him around, and you’re not the only one who wants to save him! I think you’re stronger than you think you are. And even if you feel like you’re more helpless than ever, your friends will help. Don’t forget about us!”
After a deep breath he said slowly, “You’re right. I think sometimes I feel it’s not fair to rely on one of my friends the way I used to, after what I did to him, even if he has forgiven me. And I’m only just starting to think of another as a close friend. But you’re exactly right. I’ve even had strong proof of it lately, but tonight made me lose track for a while. I can count on them, and I shouldn’t forget it.” He’d stopped using names, she noticed; he’d recollected himself.
“And me too!” She voiced it facetiously, but she meant it. “I’m your cousin, aren’t I?”
No, she wasn’t; their precise relationship had some other name she wasn’t getting at the moment.
She did know she wasn’t his mother, though.
Trowa didn’t elaborate either; how much he realized she grasped now that he wasn’t quite as he’d originally presented himself, she couldn’t be sure. “Thank you so much, Cathy. You don’t know how much better I feel after talking to you.”
“Like I said, bringing the cheering up to you!”
“And you don’t know how much I needed cheering up after this awful day.”
“Actually, I think I figured that out.”
“I can’t say I’m happy, but… I’m less unhappy. I’ll survive.”
“Make sure you do! And also remember you can call me if you want to talk crazy at someone? You don’t have to wait for me to call!”
He gave a faint, sad-sounding laugh. “You’re right.” Then with a sigh he added, “I should check whether those two lovebirds at my house are done with their drama yet so I can get back to work.”
“They’re at your house?”
“Yes, one’s a guest and the other showed up looking for him so they could make a scene. I have no idea what they may have been doing in my absence.”
“You should kick them out,” Cathy advised. “That’s so rude of them!”
“They should eventually be useful. One of them has already been useful. And they had no idea what I’ve been through today and how their conversation would affect me.”
“But still, in somebody else’s house…!”
Again Trowa laughed softly, then said formally, “Thank you for your concern, and again for your call.”
Sensing that the latter would end now if she didn’t say anything to prevent its doing so, Cathy briefly considered bringing up the new magical ability that had set all of this in motion. Trowa obviously knew a fair bit about magic, and could probably explain what was happening to her tonight, what circumstances involving himself and a few others had set it in motion, and what she could expect in the future — if not necessarily whether God had had a hand in it.
But after only a moment’s thought she decided against this. She didn’t know whether magic had told her what advice to offer Trowa a little earlier, and she didn’t know whether magic was the impulse of her decision now, but she was sure it would only add to Trowa’s stress if she sought guidance and information from him tonight. The power she’d gained was odd and inscrutable so far, but not yet unpleasant or disruptive; she could get by without harassing her friend and relation about it for now.
“Of course!” she said. “Go boot some people out of your house.”
“Good night.”
“Bye!”
Cathy looked down at where her lap had been occupied by a yellow-orange, lion-shaved pomeranian ever since she’d wandered with her phone into the living room and sat down on the sofa. “Well, Goldie Bacon Pie,” she said contemplatively, “it seems like I’m an oracle, Trowa’s at least 87 years old, and Heero and Duo and Dorothy are probably all in on it. What do you think about all that, Goldie Goldmine?”
In reply, the dog gave Cathy that happy pomeranian grin, turned a circle on her lap, and jumped down off the couch.
“You think more chicken, I can tell.” Cathy shook a finger at her pet and stood. “You are not healthy, Goldie Glutton!” Though what, exactly, she wondered, was the caloric benefit or drawback of small bits of chicken to an also-small dog?
Nothing good, apparently.
How was she to go about getting more specific answers to things she wondered about? It seemed a fairly useless talent if all she could summon was a general sense and the occasional vague vision.
It would involve speaking aloud. These spontaneous answers to mental questions were a sign of her awakening talent, and wouldn’t last. Eventually she would have to do things properly.
“All right, universe,” she tried, “how about a more specific answer about poms and chicken?”
No reply.
On a whim she asked next, “Where is Quatre Winner?”
No reply.
She shrugged, unsurprised and undisappointed that this wasn’t working for her yet. If magic ran in families, it was even possible that her divination would be, like Trowa’s, unforgivably bad. And she wouldn’t be quitting Winner Plastics and setting up a crystal ball stand on a corner somewhere no matter what her unexpected talent turned out to be like.
She did think she might have a look on the internet to see if anyone else had ever experienced a sudden awakening of visionary ability, and how they’d dealt with it if they had. Other options might be to talk to Heero (though much the same restraining considerations applied to him as to Trowa), to Dorothy, or to Emily next door. Oh, and she never had given much thought to the unknown young man whose face she’d seen in connection with the beginning of this affair.
All of this might turn out to be a bit of a burden, really: an unknown, unexpected magical power, and she ethically barred from discussing it with the people that might be most helpful… a bundle of possibly confidential information having been laid on her shoulders during a friend’s moment of weakness… a desire to help and support that might be far more difficult than she’d originally imagined…
And yet dealing with burdens was something she secretly rather relished. She enjoyed a busy schedule full of responsibilities, doing her best at difficult tasks others shied from, pitting herself against challenges. She really feared very little in the world, and the positive stress induced by the importance of any given venture only honed her skills toward dealing with it.
A need for research on an obscure topic? A set of friends not what they seemed, possibly dangerous and in danger? An awareness of the existence of cults staffed by kidnappers and brainwashers, a world into which she might, if she pursued this, be dragged? A side of herself she’d never imagined?
Bring it on.
Sano enlists the help of exorcist Hajime in discovering the nature of the unusual angry shade that's haunting him.
Best friends Heero and Quatre have their work cut out for them assisting longtime curse victims Duo and Trowa.
During Plastic (part 80), Cairo thinks about thinking and other recent changes in his life.
A look at how Hajime and Sano are doing.
A look at how Trowa and Quatre are doing.
A look at how Heero and Duo are doing.
A meeting between Kamatari and Wufei.
Couple analysis among Heero, Duo, Trowa, and Quatre.
Quatre undergoes an unpleasant magical change; Heero, Duo, and Trowa are forced to face unpleasant truths; and Hajime and Sano may get involved.
During La Confrérie de la Lune Révéré (parts 33-35), Sano's 178-day wait is over as what Hajime has been fearing comes to pass.
During Guest Room Soap Opera (part 3), Cathy learns a lot of interesting facts and Trowa is not happy.
A few days before the epilogue of La Confrérie de la Lune Révéré, Duo and Sano get together to watch football and discuss relationships and magical experiences; Heero listens in on multiple levels.
The title of this fic has an obvious meaning and two secondary meanings or references. The first person to guess what those two meanings or references are will win a ficlet from me on the topic of their choice.
I’ve rated this story 
.
Even from a huge distance — nearly from space, seemingly — it was obviously a great collection of objects, like a vast landfill where only one specific type of item was allowed. What type that was he didn’t know; though he could see they were all similarly shaped, he wasn’t close enough yet to identify them. But he was nearing, gradually, inexorably, like something floating on an incoming tide. All he had to do was wait patiently, and after not too long he would see…
Cell phones. It was an unthinkably huge collection of phones stretching into infinity and piled to oceanic depth. They were all different brands and models, showing a wide variety of conditions and levels of use. Their one feature universally in common was their stillness and silence. No light shone from the face of any; they might all have been dead, headed for recycling or an actual landfill or whatever heaven existed for cell phones.
But as he drew closer, close enough to make out the numbers and letters on each visible keypad and the staring blank expanses of the touchscreens, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a message somewhere for him, specifically for him. He looked around. It should be easy enough to spot in this desolation.
It was. Like some great mythological creature deep beneath the sea opening a thousand eyes at once, the phones abruptly lit. There was no wave of sudden power and reception spreading from one point to another; it was a spring to life so simultaneous it was as if a new image had been inserted in front of his eyes, obscuring the old, and beneath the new one still lay the dark, powerless expanse. And yet the light was so bright from the combined faces, though there was nothing to illuminate, that it was difficult not to believe in it. Besides, when he caught sight of the origin and purport of the message blazoned across the face of every phone from here to infinity, he had no choice but to believe.
It was from Quatre.
It said simply, Help.
Heero awoke to feel arms clinging to him violently, tight enough almost to hurt; and he found himself nestling against Duo and petting his hair in what he must subconsciously have thought was a soothing gesture before he was even fully awake.
“God dammit,” Duo murmured brokenly as his clutching hands moved desperately, convulsively, across Heero’s body almost as if checking him for injuries.
“I’m sure this will stop eventually.” It wasn’t the first time Heero had offered this reassurance recently, since this wasn’t the first time Duo had awakened like this in a panic. “Just give it time.”
Duo clung tighter. “I’m sorry.”
Heero shifted so as to put both arms around Duo and pull him close. “It’s OK.”
“I don’t want to feel like that again,” Duo whispered harshly. “I can’t do that again. I can’t–”
“You don’t have to. You’re not a doll anymore, and you never have to be again. See?” Heero ran a hand up and down Duo’s back, reminding him that he was here, that Duo could feel him, that this was real. “Never again.”
With a very deep breath, Duo forced himself to calm down, continuing to draw air into his lungs in a slow, deliberate pattern and closing his eyes. Finally he chuckled weakly. “How many times do we have to go through this?”
“As many as it takes,” Heero replied.
He could see only the faintest glint of light from outside the bedroom door on Duo’s eyes as they opened again, but he could hear an equally faint grin in the reply, “I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be comforting or what… but don’t think I don’t appreciate that you’re offering to be there.”
“I always will,” Heero promised.
They lay in silence for a while, the tightness of Duo’s arms around Heero the only indication that he hadn’t gone back to sleep. Finally he said, “I was a doll for a long time, you know.”
“I do know.”
“Longer than I’ve been human, actually.”
“Yeah, it’s going to take some doing to beat that.”
“It’s…” Duo’s voice lowered to an unhappy murmur. “I think it’s possible that I’ll never really get over it. We may have to go through this three times a week for… ever…”
Heero shrugged against the pillow. “As many times as it takes,” he reiterated. Inside, though, he was reflecting that if what Duo feared really did turn out to be the case, some manner of professional assistance would seem advisable. But what kind of counseling did you seek for someone whose issue was that he’d been a doll for eighty-seven years? A therapist that was aware of magic, obviously… in this crazy world with its dangerous hidden facets, such people must exist; it would just be a matter of finding them. He would have to talk to Trowa about it.
In the meantime, he might as well do what he could to try to work through Duo’s worries on his own. So he asked, “Are you nervous about starting work on Monday?”
“Yes,” said Duo emphatically. “I’d be nervous about that even if I’d grown up like a normal human and gone to real schools and everything.”
Though Heero didn’t know if he believed this of the confident Duo, it wasn’t a point worth arguing. “You know you’re going to do fine, though, right? You’ll have training first, so you’ll know exactly what’s expected of you and how to do it.”
“Will you be training me?” Evidently this topic change was working, for Duo’s tone was now, in addition to the concern and agitation Heero was seeking to calm, part wistful — since he knew the answer was no — and also just a little playful or even suggestive.
“I’ll certainly be there if you have any questions. You already email me twenty times a day half the days of the week; you can keep doing that if it’ll make you feel better. But they’ll get you a company email address, probably Wednesday or Thursday… I’m sure it’ll be dmaxwell@winner-plastics.com.”
“Ooh, that sounds so official! And I can send you completely sexually explicit emails from there, at work, with my work email, with both of us at work, and I won’t get in trouble for it?”
“You will get in trouble for it if anyone but me sees them.” Heero’s attempt at sounding severe, battling his urge to laugh, was losing badly. “But PG-rated flirtation should be fine.”
By now Duo had loosened up and stopped clutching at Heero so fiercely, and his voice as he said, “I’ll have to think up some good stuff that won’t get you fired,” had returned to something like its usual level of casual sanguinity.
Deeming it safe, therefore, Heero said, “And I think once you’re working full-time, it’ll be a pretty constant reminder that you’re human.”
“Yeah, I think so too.” Duo’s nod made a rustling sound against the bedding. “And it’ll give me more stuff to think about, so maybe it’ll distract the dreams away.” Despite his obviously greater amount of hope and calm, he still sighed as he added, “Maybe.”
Heero leaned forward with a kiss aimed at Duo’s forehead, but in the darkness found an eyebrow instead. “I can work harder at distracting you, too,” he murmured. “Make sure you have more stuff to think about.”
The warm breath of a faint, appreciative laugh touched Heero’s neck, against which Duo, yawning, then nestled his head. This resulted in his next statement coming out a bit muffled. “You know what? I love you.”
Heero kissed the top of Duo’s head and then rested his chin on it, pulling him closer once again.
After a few more comments against Heero’s skin, increasingly incoherent, Duo fell silent and started breathing deeply and evenly. Though he would eventually, Heero didn’t release him just yet. He liked to imagine that, holding Duo, he could hold off the dreams as well, hold at bay everything that troubled his lover, protect him from a world that had already been unusually unkind to him. If only it were that easy.
Despite this, however, Heero was actually rather pleased with himself. Maybe it was arrogant, but he thought he’d done quite well at helping Duo recover from his nightmare relatively quickly and smoothly. Once again, if only it were always that easy to help Duo in dealing with the aftermath of the curse. The problem was that the damn thing only struck at dark moments when Duo was most vulnerable, usually when Heero couldn’t help him. It didn’t seem fair that sleep, something Heero knew Duo had missed intensely while he’d been a doll, had been tainted by this recurring experience.
Heero would definitely have to talk to Trowa about the possibility of some kind of magical counseling.
For now, though, he just tried to get back to his own sleep and not think about bad dreams or the very high probability of their return, since there really was nothing he could do to stop them. This had been happening fairly regularly for almost two months now, after all, and Heero didn’t know how much he believed the proposed job/distraction theory they’d just discussed. The good news was that he was becoming more and more adept at damage control… he’d gone from the startlement and nearly ungovernable concern of the first few instances to a response so quick it seemed to begin even before he awoke; by now he tended to start attempting to calm and comfort Duo before he’d consciously registered what was going on.
Tonight he’d even been dreaming uncomfortably himself, hadn’t he? –possibly in subconscious response to the signs Duo had been giving. He was reacting more and more quickly, becoming more and more in tune with Duo. Maybe that really would lead to a heightened ability to help one of these nights.
And yet… the specifics of the dream he’d been having were niggling at him, trying to make themselves heard above his other thoughts. The memory of exactly what he’d seen in his sleep was gaining clarity, and Heero found himself frowning in the darkness as he ran through the events — if they could be called that — in his dream. In fact, he was waking again, increasingly worried and perplexed, and he had to struggle not to tense up and squeeze Duo awake as well. It hadn’t begun to occur to him while he’d been busy with his unhappy boyfriend, but… this wasn’t actually entirely about Duo, was it? It couldn’t be.
Because if it had been prompted only by Duo’s distress, to which he’d been responding even before he’d awakened, why had his dream centered around a request for help from Quatre?
Trowa was still a much earlier riser than his longtime best friend, so Duo found it no surprise, when Trowa put his head into Heero’s apartment late Saturday morning, that it looked as if this wasn’t the first time he’d done so. On previous in-peekings, Trowa had probably heard signs first of Duo letting Heero know exactly what he thought of a boyfriend that was so steadfastly comforting and supportive during a period of stress and nightmare, and second of a vigorous shower, but this would be the first time he’d actually seen anyone up and about.
Duo, who was very helpfully helping Heero in the kitchen dressed only in pajama pants, caught the motion of Trowa’s door opening and glanced over in time to see his friend step slowly inside, close the door behind him, and stand somewhat disconsolately against it.
“Hey, Trowa!” he greeted. “Come in and have breakfast!”
“Come in and distract Duo so I can actually make breakfast,” Heero amended quietly.
“I’ll put a shirt on, even,” was Duo’s generous accompanying offer.
When he returned from this errand wearing one of Heero’s tees, he found that Trowa had wandered over to the sofa and sat down somewhat stiffly. His friend was now involved in an unnecessarily arduous discussion about whether he wanted breakfast, how likely he was to suffer if he skipped breakfast, and what, in the event he did want breakfast, he would like for breakfast. Heero was very patiently wringing answers out of Trowa, who was being far more unresponsive than usual; it was a little odd.
“You know Quatre will get on everyone’s case if you don’t eat,” Duo said as he flopped down on the couch.
Trowa stiffened even further at the mention of Quatre’s name, and this was the last sign Duo needed that something was wrong. Normally that sort of remark was everything required to get Trowa to shape up and act like a human being.
“So, what’s going on?” Duo wondered, hoping to spare Trowa’s feelings by letting him be the one to introduce whatever was bothering him. “Planning anything super exciting for your birthday?”
Trowa just shrugged.
“Birthdays count again,” Duo reminded him. “That’s worth celebrating, isn’t it?”
Faintly Trowa smiled. “You’re right about that.”
This wasn’t getting anywhere, so Duo decided to repeat the only word that had gotten a specific reaction thus far. “You and Quatre heading out to someplace extremely romantic?”
Simultaneously Trowa repeated his shrug, sighed a little, and looked away at nothing. “I thought we were,” he said, “but I think plans may have changed.”
This was enough to catch whatever portion of Duo’s attention hadn’t already been riveted on the conversation — not merely because Trowa was unhappy about something, but because words like ‘think’ and ‘may’ had just been applied to a plan involving Quatre. There might be times when Quatre’s plans weren’t entirely certain, but that was generally months before the event in question… and Trowa was turning 112 (or perhaps 25) tomorrow. “What happened?”
Trowa was consideringly silent for a moment. “He was in a bad mood last night.” Clearly he was trying to downplay this, but it wasn’t working.
Thinking back over the five months in which he’d known Quatre, Duo was having a hard time finding any memory to supply the information he wanted. Finally he asked in some interest, “What’s that like?”
“Not very enjoyable for me.”
This, Duo thought, answered his question: Trowa and Quatre had had a little tiff, and Trowa was here to pout and be petted about it. Doubtless Quatre would call or show up later, apologetic and full of plans for tomorrow, and everything would be fine. For now, it was probably best to let Trowa get everything off his chest in his own time.
“I’m worried,” was how Trowa began, in a tone of confession — as if worrying about his boyfriend after an argument was a sign of weakness or something; poor Trowa. “He isn’t answering my phone calls, and he isn’t in his room at his house.”
“Well, he wouldn’t be, if he’s annoyed and off somewhere,” said Duo reasonably. “Heero! Where does Quatre go when he’s annoyed?”
“Swimming,” Heero replied, so promptly that it was obvious he was listening intently to the entire discussion.
“See?” Duo gave Trowa a comforting pat on the shoulder. “He’s not going to answer his phone if he’s in a pool, but I’m sure he’ll call you when he gets out.”
Trowa was still staring blankly at a point halfway up one of the apartment’s largely empty walls. Duo had been meaning to talk to Heero about putting something interesting on some of them… if there’d been a picture there, Trowa would have had something real not to look at instead of having to make do with cream-colored nothing. As it was, Trowa was silent for the moment. Duo was itching to know what he’d done to irritate Quatre, but didn’t think asking — which would be tantamount to accusing — would be terribly kind.
Finally, “He called me a coward,” Trowa murmured.
“What?” This startled demand came from two voices, and suddenly Heero was standing just behind the couch looking down at Trowa with constricted brows and worried eyes.
Now Trowa’s gaze shifted to the floor, as if he couldn’t stand to meet the gaze of either of his friends. “I made him do something I couldn’t do myself. I didn’t force him to — I didn’t even ask him to; he volunteered — but the fact that I couldn’t do it, and that he feels the need to take care of me, made it equal to forcing him. He probably thought he didn’t have a choice, and that’s my fault.”
“And it was so bad that he called you a coward to your face,” Heero said. His face had gone hard, as had his tone, but he spoke softly. Duo had been surprised and concerned at hearing a report of Quatre using such negative language toward Trowa, but at the sight of Heero’s expression and the sound of his voice his concern grew significantly.
Trowa nodded, and said heavily, “He told me I’ve been under the backwards impression that being a powerful magician was all I had left of myself that was worthwhile… and that I was afraid to let that go and live like a normal person… and that was keeping me from fully recovering after the curse. He said that if I’m going to keep being a coward about things, he’s not going to be able to help me.”
It sounded… well, it sounded, Duo had to admit, perfectly accurate. It didn’t sound like anything Quatre would say. Duo remembered comforting himself once with the thought that Quatre was too compassionate ever to be unkindly blunt… but perhaps Trowa had somehow pushed him farther than Duo had ever seen Quatre pushed. Or had Duo simply been wrong in his assessment? In any case, the statement Quatre had made didn’t sound like anything someone merely ‘in a bad mood’ would say.
“He was right,” Trowa said simply, “but normally he’s so much more kind about things like that.”
Duo nodded inadvertently as Trowa essentially verified everything he’d just been thinking. Trowa didn’t even sound petulant now — he wasn’t complaining or looking for sympathy; he was uncomprehendingly hurt.
“I think I apologized for being so much trouble… I barely remember what I said… because he interrupted me and said, ‘You know, Trowa, we spend an awful lot of time talking about you and your problems. It’s not that I don’t want to help you, but it gets overwhelming sometimes.'”
Trowa quoted as if he would never forget the exact words, and Duo simply stared at him. Once again it seemed completely accurate… and completely out of character for Quatre. Of course dealing with Trowa’s issues must get overwhelming at times… but Duo wouldn’t have thought Quatre would ever actually voice that sentiment aloud to Trowa.
“Then he said he was tired, and he went home. I thought he was going to stay,” Trowa added with a slight blush, “and be around today… we hadn’t quite decided between a couple of different options for tomorrow… but he seemed like he was angry with me all of a sudden. And now he won’t answer my calls.”
“It is kinda early still…” Duo offered this excuse only half-heartedly, since it wasn’t actually all that early and he knew Quatre to be a morning person.
Something on the stove was crackling alarmingly, but Heero remained motionless beside the couch. He looked even more worried than before, and Duo thought there was a deep pensiveness and perhaps a touch of anger to his expression as well — and some disapproval, even accusation such as Duo had earlier eschewed, in Heero’s tone as he asked, “What exactly did you have him do for you?”
Sounding even more miserable than before, Trowa ranted quietly. “He’s been bringing it up regularly for months, and I kept putting it off… if I’d just done it myself, this wouldn’t have happened, since I’m sure that’s what caused this. He saw I couldn’t do it and offered to do it for me… I shouldn’t have let him; I should have done it myself… I shouldn’t have been such a coward.”
Silence followed this minor outburst, and Trowa seemed to realize that he hadn’t actually answered the question. With a glance that was unexpectedly expressive of helpless guilt, he finally told them. “The artifact. He destroyed it for me.”
Oddly enough, the tension in the room seemed to lessen a little at Trowa’s pronouncement. He had anticipated anger from his two friends on hearing that he’d allowed Quatre to undertake something so magically involved and potentially dangerous — just as he’d been angry at himself for it ever since last night — but apparently his words had had a different effect.
“So this is a magical thing.” Duo actually sounded somewhat relieved. “The artifact did something to him, and you should be able to clear it up and everything should be fine.”
Not so sure, Trowa said nothing.
Heero, apparently sharing Trowa’s doubts, wondered, “But what did it do to him? I’ve never seen Quatre behave like you’re describing.”
“Yeah, Quatre’s so… nice…” Duo’s expression, at the sound of Heero’s voice, had slowly changed back to a frown.
“He’s not just nice,” Heero said fiercely — a very unusual tone for him. “He almost never speaks without thinking, and even if he has something difficult to say to someone, he says it as kindly as possible. And it takes him forever to say that kind of thing to his boyfriend, even–” here Trowa could feel cold eyes burning the back of his neck– “when his boyfriend deserves it.”
“I know I deserved it.” The slight defensiveness in Trowa’s tone, the fact that he was standing up for himself (in a way) would have pleased Quatre the day before yesterday, Trowa thought. Today? Who knew? “He didn’t say anything that wasn’t perfectly true. It’s him I’m worried about.” Well, there was a touch of us he was worried about too — which, he felt, also would have pleased the normal Quatre. But when the normal Quatre wasn’t around, it seemed almost meaningless. “And he’s not answering his phone.”
Abruptly Heero moved around the sofa and down the hall. For a few moments there was no sound but that of whatever he’d been cooking, which was now beginning to smell a bit smoky. In response to this, Duo reluctantly stood and went to deal with the probably ruined breakfast. Trowa thought there was very little appetite left among the three of them.
“Trowa…” Heero had returned with his cell phone, on which he’d fixed a very odd, pensive look. “About what time last night did this all happen?”
“Early morning.” Wondering why Heero wanted to know, Trowa tried to narrow it down. “Probably around three.”
“Which time zone?”
“Mine. So, midnight here?”
In the kitchen, Duo’s sudden audible shifting suggested this meant something to him. But Heero said nothing, only nodded slightly and turned back to walk down the hall again. Another silence settled, but for Duo rattling cooking utensils, finally followed by the muffled sound of Heero talking to someone on the phone in his bedroom. It didn’t seem a very promising conversation, though — too many questions and long pauses.
This was confirmed when Heero returned, still eyeing the device in his hand strangely, and eventually looked up at where Trowa remained on the couch. “No answer,” he said, stopping in the entry to the hall and pocketing his phone with a reluctant slowness. “I called his house too, and Darryl said he’s still not there. Something is definitely wrong.”
“Why do you say that?” It was actually a little annoying that, after it had already been established that Quatre wasn’t answering Trowa’s calls, Heero would come to the conclusion something was wrong only after he tried and failed to reach his friend.
“Because,” said Heero slowly, still frowning, “last night at 12:15 or so, I woke up from a dream about Quatre asking me for help.”
Now it was Duo’s turn to emerge, startled, from the kitchen, abandoning whatever cooking endeavor was going on there. “You woke up from a dream?”
Heero nodded. “It was a message. I didn’t quite realize that last night, because…” His eyes flicked to Duo and away. “I got distracted. But it wasn’t a normal dream.”
Mimicking the nod, Trowa said wearily, “You’re a communicator.”
“What?” Duo wondered, pulled momentarily from his concern for Quatre. “Is he?”
“I’ve thought so for a while, but I never got around to running a test. Now I don’t have to. The type of connection with a friend that brings dreams like that is one of the definitive signs.” Trowa would be very interested in this at a later time, but at the moment he barely cared. “And you’re right, Heero: it’s also a definitive sign that something is wrong.” As if that weren’t already obvious.
Heero too set aside, for now, the question of his area of magical talent. “And I assume you can’t jump to him, or you would already have done it.” His tone was even, and Trowa got the feeling he was also setting accusation aside in the interest of helping Quatre.
“I haven’t tried jumping anywhere,” Trowa replied, “but I’m sure it will take some time and practice before I can do it again at all… and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to use Quatre as a destination again.” And that prospect had been not the least of the reasons he hadn’t been looking forward to giving up the largest portion of his power. Quatre had been right about his cowardice, but at least some of it was specifically related to Quatre himself. The reminder that normal people got around by non-magical means all the time could do little to console Trowa for the loss of the ability to go instantly to his boyfriend whenever he wanted.
“You haven’t tried yet,” Heero murmured very quietly, almost as if to himself. Then, more loudly and very flatly he wondered, “Why are you here, Trowa?”
Trowa opted for complete honesty. “I wanted to see if I was overreacting.”
“If you haven’t tried jumping to him yet, I’d say you’re underreacting.”
“Maybe not, maybe not,” said Duo placatingly from where he’d returned to the kitchen. “We don’t know for sure yet exactly what happened.”
“I,” said Heero, in the same absolutely flat tone as before, “have known Quatre for ten years. And I am telling you both that something is wrong. Trowa, I think you should try jumping to him. If that doesn’t work, I think you should look through those books of yours and see if you can figure out what might have happened to him.”
The I think‘s didn’t make these statements any less commanding, but any sting Trowa might have felt at being ordered around by Heero was drowned in the concern he felt — an emotion he’d been holding back all this time but that had been let loose by Heero’s steely pronouncements. He nodded and stood. “Let me know if you get ahold of him.”
Curtly, Heero returned the gesture.
Duo’s tone in the goodbye he called out as Trowa headed for home was somewhat forlorn. “Good luck!” Trowa heard him add as his door closed.
It didn’t entirely close before it opened again, and he turned, a little surprised, to find that he’d been followed. Heero still looked grim, but something about the grimness had altered slightly. Silently he let the door fall shut behind him as he faced Trowa across the entry, and Trowa waited in equal silence for whatever Heero had remembered or thought of to add.
“This isn’t the best moment to ask,” Heero began slowly, “but I don’t want to wait. Do you know — or could you find — a good therapist who knows about magic?”
Trowa blinked in surprise, but the explanation for the incongruous request presented itself almost immediately: Duo needed help. Professional help. It was in no way any wonder, regardless of how happy Duo seemed in general. And he certainly did seem happy to Trowa… Heero tended to know these more personal things long before Trowa did these days, an idea to which Trowa still hadn’t entirely reconciled himself. Not that now was the time for that.
“I’ll look for someone,” he assured Heero seriously.
“Thank you.” As this evidently formed the completion of the intended exchange, Heero turned and moved to go back to his apartment.
But Trowa couldn’t let him leave without saying something that, he hoped, would reassure (or at least remind) Heero that they two were still friends despite any coldness resulting from odd and uncomfortable circumstances, that Trowa returned concern for concern. It was a little difficult to drag his mind away from the worrisome mystery of Quatre’s behavior, and the next subject in line would certainly be this new suggestion that Duo was still traumatized by the long cursed years, so his words were a little halting as other thoughts continually dragged his attention away from them. “Heero… if communication is your primary skill…” Trowa was fairly sure he was right about that, and even without the artifact, Trowa’s surety was worth quite a bit on magical matters. “If you’re a communicator, and your abilities have awakened… you’re likely to start hearing people’s thoughts.”
“What?” Heero sounded surprised and not entirely pleased.
“Only louder thoughts, in general.” Though it wasn’t Trowa’s main area of talent, so he’d never had this problem, he knew how it usually worked for communicators. “But if you spend enough time with someone, you’ll start picking up anything on the surface of their mind they aren’t actively trying to hide from you.”
“In other words,” Heero muttered, “get ready to start hearing all of Duo’s thoughts, and probably Quatre’s, and maybe yours.”
“Not mine.” Trowa’s tone was a bit dry as he recalled just how much time and power he’d had backing his practice even of skills that were technically secondary to him, little proficiency as he’d still gained in some of them. “And I think Quatre’s… natural organization… may keep most of his thoughts exactly where he wants them.” Just mentioning Quatre’s name distracted him from this topic, but Trowa forced himself to finish. “But Duo… yes, I think you should get ready to start hearing Duo’s thoughts. Surface-level thoughts, at least.”
Heero had turned to face Trowa again, and now he nodded slowly, his pensive expression bearing traces of reluctance. Finally he smiled grimly and said, “I guess that’s the price I have to pay for hanging around you magical people. There’s nothing I can do about this, is there?”
Trowa shook his head. There certainly were options to make Heero’s talent easier for him to deal with, but Trowa was at the end of how far he could discuss this subject right now; having alerted him to the somewhat inconvenient early indications of a communion skill was all he could manage at the moment.
“Well, thanks for the warning.” Heero turned back toward the door once more. Before he opened it he added in a friendlier tone than he’d used to dismiss Trowa from his apartment, “Good luck today.” And once Trowa had returned his thanks, he left.
Trowa sighed as he glanced back and forth between his study and his computer room, trying to decide whether magical experimentation or research (and, if the latter, which branch of research) would be most likely to produce quick and positive results. Eventually he headed into the study with a good deal more to think about than he’d had when he left it earlier — assuming he was capable of thinking about anything besides Quatre.
Duo was examining the outcome of all their diffuse breakfast endeavors with a contemplative frown as Heero came back into the apartment through Trowa’s door, and the most worrisome part was that Duo looked like he was seriously considering eating it anyway. In celebration of the fact that he could eat anything now, Duo would eat anything now.
“I hope you following him in there means you thought of something that explains everything,” he said without looking up.
“No,” Heero half sighed. “I wish it did.”
The expression Duo now turned up toward him was sympathetic, but pretty clearly showed that he wasn’t yet convinced of the full direness of the situation with Quatre. There was some curiosity in it too as he said, “Why’d you go after him, then?”
“Trowa says he’ll look around for a therapist who knows about magic to help you with… your…” Heero found his voice failing at the change that occurred during his words: Duo had stiffened, stilled, and given Heero his complete attention — and none of this in a good way.
“Did Trowa bring this up,” Duo asked quietly, “or did you?”
“I did. Because of your dreams.”
Tightly Duo nodded, and his voice was quiet and nearly emotionless as he said, “Please don’t just go over my head like that.”
“I didn’t sign you up or anything; I just asked Trowa if he knew anyone you could go to.”
Duo moved his attention back to their breakfast as Heero approached somewhat warily. “Well, talk to me first about things like that. Then Trowa.” Actually it didn’t look like he was examining the food at all; he obviously just didn’t want to look at Heero.
In response to Duo’s pointed turning away, Heero stopped at the edge of the kitchen and tried to explain. “I knew you’d just say that no psychiatrist could possibly know what you’ve been through, so I thought before I brought it up I’d check–”
“Please,” Duo reiterated with a firmness that was almost desperate. “Talk to me first.” He gripped the oven door handle tightly as his gaze seemed to be pointed toward the contents of the stove without really seeing them. “You don’t know what I’ve been through either; you don’t know what it’s like to have everyone do everything for you because you can’t do it for yourself.”
Heero couldn’t help being a little hurt by “You don’t know what I’ve been through,” but he struggled not to say so. It was true, after all, at least on a certain level: he had been informed of much of Duo’s history, and had himself been part of Duo’s last month as a doll, but that wasn’t the same as knowing. Even if he’d been there for all of it, he couldn’t really have known what was going on in Duo’s head, how the curse affected Duo on the inside rather than the outside. Of course Duo had shared some of it with him, and there was more Heero could guess at just by interacting with him, but that still wasn’t the same as knowing. And even the knowledge he claimed to have — that therapy would help — was in actuality only a guess.
But if what Trowa had warned him about did come to pass, he might eventually no longer need to guess what was going on in Duo’s head. He might eventually know what Duo had been through. But he pushed that thought away for now.
“Of course. You’re right,” he said at last. “I should have realized.” He meant it as an apology he didn’t quite have plainer words for, and Duo seemed to accept it as such.
“It’s…” Duo released the oven with one hand and swung around, pivoting on the other wrist, still hanging on but looking now at Heero with a serious expression. “Not like I don’t appreciate the thought. OK, well, I don’t really like the thought much either, but…”
Heero winced. Of course Duo wouldn’t enjoy having his boyfriend suddenly suggest that he needed counseling, even if Heero had managed to suggest it in a manner that didn’t tread heavily on Duo’s toes.
“But I appreciate that you’re trying to look out for me,” Duo finished. He gave Heero a smile that, though genuine as Duo’s smiles always were, wasn’t as happy as it could have been, and turned back to the stove. Now he focused properly on the remains of their intended breakfast, and said more or less cheerfully, “I think I’m not hungry enough anymore to eat this. What do you think?”
Heero moved forward to join in the examination, and shook his head.
Wordlessly they set about cleaning up, discarding ruined food and washing dishes in a silence that was like Duo’s smile — not tense or angry, but neither as easy or happy as it could have been.
Finally, scraping the frying pan somewhat over-vigorously, Duo said abruptly, “I don’t need therapy.”
“I’m sorry,” Heero replied. It was an automatic and somewhat defensive response, but at least he’d gotten the words out.
“I made it through eighty-seven years as a fucking doll without going crazy.” Duo, whose voice told what he was feeling far more often than Heero’s did, sounded much more defensive than Heero had. “I don’t need to see someone about a couple of little bad dreams.”
“I’m sorry,” Heero repeated, this time at a murmur. He thought Duo was very specifically incorrect in this instance — Duo’s almost desperate defensiveness spoke pretty eloquently that there were mental issues in there that could use some professional help — but Heero was sorry he’d made him unhappy with his suggestion and his thoughtlessness, and he wasn’t going to press the issue at the moment. He would have to bring it up again eventually, but right now he just wanted Duo to smile properly.
What Duo did instead was drop what he was working on in the sink and fling soapy-handed arms around Heero unexpectedly from behind. “It’s OK,” he said. “Stop sounding like a kicked puppy! How could I be mad at you for doing something you thought was just to help me?”
“Because I did it all wrong?” Heero suggested. Whether or not he still sounded like a kicked puppy — and he had some doubts about having done so in the first place — he couldn’t guess, but he was certainly happier with Duo’s arms around him, even if he was going to have to change his shirt.
Duo nuzzled his face into Heero’s back, and, though he said something muffled about learning from experience and not doing it again, he seemed to be seeking comfort all of a sudden. As if he were asking Heero — the one that had introduced the idea — to reassure him that he wasn’t broken. It didn’t shake Heero’s conviction that counseling would do his lover good, nor did it make him feel less guilty about how he’d botched things; but he did raise a hand to clutch at Duo’s, disregarding suds and char, and squeeze it.
Eventually Duo stood straight, pulling away and clearing his throat, and turned back to the sink as if nothing had happened. “Besides,” he said in a brighter tone than before, which didn’t entirely match his words, “you’re distracted worrying about Quatre.”
This tense little scene with Duo had actually driven thoughts of Quatre far into the rear of Heero’s mind, but it was true that his best friend had been almost the center of his thoughts when he’d followed Trowa. That didn’t excuse having done something he should have known would be hurtful to his boyfriend, and he would have brought this up had he not believed Duo’s mentioning Quatre was a signal that he wanted to talk about something else.
Heero located a towel to run over the front of his shirt and his hands, and then brought out his phone to try Quatre again. This time it went straight to voicemail. Though Heero wasn’t generally one for leaving messages, he was tempted in this instance. That he hadn’t the faintest idea what he could say kept him from doing so.
What next? Conceivably Heero could call the club and see if he could wheedle them into telling him whether or not Quatre was there, but, even if he managed that, what then? It was pretty obvious that Quatre wasn’t interested in talking to anyone right now, and, worried as Heero was, such wishes should be respected. And yet, if there was magic at work, such wishes might have to take lower priority than expedience. But, as with a message, what would Heero say? Very specific concern was sometimes a little difficult for him to convey; something this uncertain would probably be even harder to put into words. But he would definitely feel a lot better if he could talk to Quatre — about anything. Just to hear his voice at this point would reassure Heero, even if it reaffirmed the current bad situation.
He supposed he could visit in person the places he thought Quatre might be… but he couldn’t get into the club except as the guest of an actual member, who had to be present at the front desk; and anywhere else Quatre might go in a particularly and possibly supernaturally bad mood — the office, out jogging, or to Cassidy’s bar downtown — were hit-or-miss at best.
“You’re really seriously worried, aren’t you?” Whether the darkness of Duo’s tone was in response to the referenced worry or a lingering result of the previous conversation, Heero didn’t know. In any case, he was finished scrubbing the frying pan (or at least finished with all the work he was willing to put in on that endeavor at the moment), and wrapping arms around Heero’s chest again. He hadn’t washed his hands, but it didn’t much matter.
“I’m really seriously worried,” Heero confirmed. And perhaps it was impetuous, but he decided suddenly, “And I’m going to go look for him.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Duo at once.
“Thank you,” Heero replied. “Let me change shirts, and we’ll go.” As he left Duo’s arms and headed across the living room toward the hall and his bedroom, he added with a sigh, “This may be completely useless, but it’ll feel better than doing nothing.”
This was like an echo of those long years when he’d been unable to find Duo or get any idea of what he should do once he managed to: he had huge amounts of knowledge and decades of experience, but in the specific area where he was being challenged he was ignorant and powerless.
He’d never been very good at divination, and now, without the artifact to boost his personal power, he was barely getting answers at all. This, he believed, probably arose from having grown too accustomed to that extra power, and that he would, in time, be able to benefit from that branch of magic again… but ‘in time’ didn’t help with figuring out what had happened to Quatre right now.
In the area of communion he’d likewise never been very skilled, and the telepathy that was the hallmark of a communicator’s powers was something he’d never mastered. Good communicators could, with practice, even speak telepathically over a distance, but Trowa didn’t think any amount of practice would allow him to do so. So reaching out mentally to Quatre was out.
Command magic, therefore, was his only option in this situation. Thinking back on how skilled he’d become in this area was reassuring, but his drop in raw power was still a concern, and not a small one. He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to use the artifact as a crutch — even to the point where he’d developed a certain attunement to it that had allowed him to access it from a distance almost without realizing he was doing so — until he was forced to go without it. Once again, however, he believed it was just a matter of time before he learned to look at magic from the different angle of having an almost perfect knowledge of how to work it without the practically unlimited power he’d once commanded.
The last couple of hours, spent first exploring his options and then trying to jump to Quatre, had obviously not constituted the time that it was only a matter of. In teleportation, there was no prior connection to the destination; you only knew you had properly specified the desired location by arriving there. Therefore, there was no scale to measure how well you had a destination in mind: you either arrived at it, or you went nowhere. In this case, it was like reaching, while climbing blind, for a handhold that turned out not to exist. And then the energy already built up for the spell had to be expended, either by initiating the weightlessness of jumping to no purpose where he stood or as a burst of undirected power that threatened destruction around him.
In part for this reason, he’d been attempting this experiment outside in his back yard. Up almost to his knees in weed-choked grass, breathing deeply, eyes often closed, sometimes raising his arms in a gesture meant to focus his energy in the direction he wanted, he would have presented quite a picture to anyone able to see over the six-foot fences, but for once he was completely ignoring the old paranoia about his neighbors.
He was also out here because he suspected a few of the objects in his study of having become artifacts. Because they had formed in conjunction with his use of the lunar artifact, they had previously been merely satellites to it, attuned to it from their inception, and unlikely to interfere with any magic he performed using its power — but now, with the candlestick destroyed, they were free to progress along their own paths and develop their own wavelengths that might interact badly with each other and have unforeseen influences over his attempts at spellcasting. Eventually he would test the items he suspected, and others, to determine which were artifacts and what their nature might be, and decide what to do with them all, but at the moment, not having time for that, he was simply working outside their presence.
Well, it was clear that using Quatre as a destination was simply not going to work. Whether it would at some point in the future, after more extensive and leisurely experimentation, Trowa did not know; right now he had to move on. The next step seemed to be, more simply, jumping to a destination that demanded less focus, less precise conjunction of multiple branches of magic. And the choice of destination wasn’t terribly difficult, given that there were only a few places Quatre was likely to be that Trowa knew well enough to jump to. It was Saturday, yes, but he’d known Quatre to go to work on weekends for reasons less pressing than being magically irritable and wanting a distraction.
From many instances of picking Quatre up after work (whether because he’d taken him there in the first place and Quatre had no other way home, or in preparation for an evening together, or even just, on a couple of occasions, to surprise him), Trowa knew Quatre’s office well enough by now to be confident in his ability to jump to it if he could manage the teleportation spell at all. He tried not to imagine Quatre there, practically waiting for him to appear, with an explanation for his strange behavior and a reassurance that he wasn’t actually angry at Trowa at all. He tried not to picture them making up tenderly and then heading off — after, of course, a reassuring call to Heero — for a birthday celebration that would last the rest of the weekend. He knew he would only be disappointed.
Even as he cast the spell, he felt how extravagant he’d become. He never would have noticed before, with the artifact, but now when he had a much lower level of power it was obvious that he was expending far too much of it on this task simply because he’d never had to worry about conserving energy before. But now, as he landed in the office lit only by the big wall of windows on one side, he actually stumbled as he came to rest, and had to catch the desk to keep from falling. Exhaustion slammed into him along with the realization that he’d used the better part of his power on this one jump, that he certainly wouldn’t be leaving this place magically until he’d had a rest and probably a good hard reflection on how more economically to cast this spell.
And of course Quatre wasn’t here. Despite having striven to avoid getting his hopes up, Trowa was still bitterly disappointed.
After a glance around and coming to the decision that the very comfortable-looking leather chair at Quatre’s big glossy desk would be the best place to regather his strength and give his mind to what needed to be thought about, he moved first, slowly, toward the office door (at what might be considered a hobble) in order to poke his head out into the hallway to ascertain whether he could hear anyone moving around in other parts of the building. And though he thought the fact that lights were on was a good sign that someone else was probably here, he didn’t hear anyone immediately nearby, which was for the best. Then he took a seat, swiveled to face the windows, and stared blankly out at the parking lot and other nearby businesses.
It was strange to feel so drained so abruptly. It was novel, but that didn’t mean he liked it. He felt as if he’d just run a marathon and come in last. Never in his life could he remember being so worn out, and though the bulk of the sensation was not physical, yet a certain measure of physical weariness was dragged along in the wake of his magical depletion. It was depressing and embittering.
The sound of the office door opening startled him enough that he jerked in his seat, and several thoughts went through his head in split-second succession: first, that it must be Quatre; second, that, as it obviously wasn’t Quatre, it was odd that the door should be unlocked for anyone else to get in; third, that he’d probably unlocked the door himself by opening it from the inside; fourth, that his presence here was going to seem strange no matter who it was and why they were entering.
Even as he turned, he heard a woman’s voice begin, “I didn’t know you were here today, but I’m glad–” But she cut off when she saw that it wasn’t her manager in the chair behind the desk.
“Pardon me,” Trowa replied wearily. “I know I’m not who you’re looking for.”
“No,” she said, advancing. “I thought Quatre must have come in without me noticing, and it was a stroke of luck he was here on a Saturday just when I was.” She smiled a little as she approached the desk, and it was obvious that she did think it odd — and probably a little suspicious — to find this stranger here.
For a moment Trowa didn’t know what to say. Not that coming up with excuses for the magical happenings in which he was often involved (indeed, which he often caused) was at all foreign to him; it was because he was momentarily captivated by her face.
It was the strong nose, he thought, and something about the corners of the eyes. She didn’t have freckles, but he thought hers was the type of complexion that might develop them under the correct atmospheric conditions. And the big curls in the reddish-brown hair were certainly part of it.
Not entirely sure what prompted him to do so, he stood up and reached out across the desk, just as if this were his office and he was introducing himself to a co-worker or something, to offer a handshake. “My name is Trowa Barton. I’m Quatre’s boyfriend.” And though simple truth such as this was something he greatly preferred to tell where possible, it was a little surprising even to him that he’d given it so readily here and now.
He thought her eyes were studying his features with just as much interest as his had studied hers, and at the sound of his name her brows went down slightly — not, he thought, with any negative emotion, but in an expression of interest and curiosity. She accepted the handshake with a firm grip and replied, “Well, I’m Catharine Barton. Good to meet you.”
What were the chances, Trowa wondered, of a second child of his mother also having deliberately taken her last name, and both that name and his mother’s features having been carried down several generations and across the country to manifest in a co-worker of his mother’s first child’s boyfriend a century later? Could it be just a coincidental resemblance and sharing of name? He had no idea.
He realized he’d expressed himself equally pleased to meet her almost without knowing he spoke, and now she was asking him, “So is Quatre here after all?”
With a shake of his head designed also to shake himself out of his distraction he replied, “I don’t think so. I came here looking for him, but it seems I’m out of luck as well.”
“That’s too bad,” she replied. Her stance had shifted slightly, and Trowa realized that she was settling in. She probably wasn’t quite sure yet that she believed he was who he said he was, and felt she couldn’t leave the room until her mind had been eased on that point. That was fine — Trowa needed to rest before he could go anywhere anyway, and he might as well do it in someone else’s presence as out of it — but he wanted to sit back down, and felt it would be discourteous to do so with this woman standing across the desk from him; at the same time, it would be awkward to invite her to sit down when this wasn’t actually his office.
The slight awkwardness of the situation was clearly felt by Catharine too, and was probably what prompted her question, “Can’t you call him?”
“He’s not answering,” Trowa replied. “We had a fight.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Her sympathy sounded genuine, and also seemed to break the ice a bit; glancing around, she pulled one of the other chairs in the room closer to the desk and sat, much to Trowa’s relief. But she still sounded as if she was floundering a bit for things to say when she added, “You’re lucky you ran into me and not anyone else from sales with that news. I’ve never met a team more gossipy than ours.”
“I’ve heard stories,” Trowa nodded as he too took his seat. “Apparently everyone believes Quatre is dating Heero.”
She gave a smile of regretful amusement, and seemed to relax a bit; Heero’s name (and this bit of gossip) was obviously a password of sorts. “It’s gotten a little confused lately, because–” She lifted her chin and a pointed finger as she interrupted herself: “Now, I want it understood that I don’t work the gossip mill! But it’s impossible not to overhear just about everything.”
Trowa smiled a bit at the mixture of pride and playfulness in her demeanor. “Understood.”
“Well, some people know Heero’s actual boyfriend, and half the building still thinks Heero and Quatre are dating. There’s a lot of whispering about who’s cheating on whom.”
“I wonder how Duo coming to work here will affect that.”
“Duo — that’s Heero’s boyfriend, right? Is he coming to work here?”
“He starts Monday, I believe.”
“It’s going to turn everything upside-down for a while. Always a fun time for those of us who are here to work, not stick our noses into other people’s business.”
The fact that she was here on a Saturday was all the confirmation Trowa needed that she was one of those here to work.
“And even having said that,” she added, leaning forward a bit, “I can’t help asking… where are you from?”
Evidently the family resemblance was not, as Trowa had half thought it might be, a figment of his imagination, if the way Catharine’s eyes were roving his face was any indication. She looked mostly relaxed and unsuspicious now, and would probably be all right leaving him alone in Quatre’s office — but there was no reason they couldn’t try to figure out for sure, first, whether or not they were related. The possibility of his having living relations, whatever their precise degree of connection, was not one Trowa had ever given any thought, and he found that it interested him more than he would have expected. And a distraction from his concern about Quatre, during these moments when he was forced to rest and barred from action, was not unwelcome.
So, falling back somewhat on the old genealogy he’d built for himself to fill up believably the years between his parents and himself, and setting forth his own history in the early 1900’s as that of his great-grandfather, he started to explain where he’d lived and about his family line.
Sano enlists the help of exorcist Hajime in discovering the nature of the unusual angry shade that's haunting him.
Best friends Heero and Quatre have their work cut out for them assisting longtime curse victims Duo and Trowa.
During Plastic (part 80), Cairo thinks about thinking and other recent changes in his life.
A look at how Hajime and Sano are doing.
A look at how Trowa and Quatre are doing.
A look at how Heero and Duo are doing.
A meeting between Kamatari and Wufei.
Couple analysis among Heero, Duo, Trowa, and Quatre.
Quatre undergoes an unpleasant magical change; Heero, Duo, and Trowa are forced to face unpleasant truths; and Hajime and Sano may get involved.
During La Confrérie de la Lune Révéré (parts 33-35), Sano's 178-day wait is over as what Hajime has been fearing comes to pass.
During Guest Room Soap Opera (part 3), Cathy learns a lot of interesting facts and Trowa is not happy.
A few days before the epilogue of La Confrérie de la Lune Révéré, Duo and Sano get together to watch football and discuss relationships and magical experiences; Heero listens in on multiple levels.
Seeing Red
Somehow Hajime had been adapting to Sano’s shields even as Sano had been learning to erect them. They’d been growing together, specifically alongside each other.
Wafting incense smoke and the cheerful greeting of the most cheerful of the various cheerful young ladies that worked here assaulted Hajime as he stepped into Forest of Four. He’d grown accustomed to the first — apparently no self-respecting follower of shallow mysticism would set foot in a store that did not reek of incense, and he recognized the need to appease the customer base — and, to be honest, he didn’t mind the smell too much. The second, however, was consistently jarring.
“Good morning, Mr. Saitou!” the clerk chirped. Her thoughts, though noisy, primarily related to work, and Hajime could appreciate her professionalism if not her mental control. When he nodded at her, she went on, “He’s with another client right now, but you can wait for him over by the hall.” She pointed to the area in question, with which he was familiar enough, and he nodded again.
The chairs against the wall beside the corridor leading to the employees’ area were, to all appearances, designed for people waiting for friends in the fitting room. Hajime didn’t appreciate being mistaken for the companion of someone that would shop a place like this, but had little choice; fortunately, Aoshi usually didn’t keep him waiting too long. Aoshi didn’t care much for people — living people, at least — and even this circumstance of having two appointments on the same morning was unusual.
It would be an even more unusual circumstance if the medium had three appointments on the same morning, but a young man sat crookedly in the chair closest to the hallway very much as if he too awaited a conference with Aoshi. This was a little irritating; now Hajime would be forced either to sit beside this stranger, one of whose legs was drawn up so the foot protruded under the armrest onto the next chair over, or take the seat closest to the fitting room. Disliking both options, he decided to remain standing. He did give the young man a dark, somewhat annoyed scrutiny, though.
The guy didn’t really seem to fit here. He didn’t sparkle, for one thing. He didn’t have that empty-headed look Hajime had seen on the faces of so many patrons of this establishment — the look that promised to believe (and consequently purchase) anything at all that said ‘cosmic’ somewhere on it. Actually, the best word for this kid was ‘punk’ — assuming Hajime had his subcultural terms straight, that is; he was fairly sure the absurd hair, excessive jewelry, spikes, and chains signified this. In general it strengthened the impression that the young man had come to see Aoshi and not to shop.
The young man had been mirroring the examination, and now asked lazily, “Exorcist?” He gestured casually to the sword in Hajime’s hand.
Hajime nodded, his guess confirmed. Nobody here just for an ‘I do believe in faeries!’ bumper sticker would have made the connection between his weapon and his profession.
Removing his foot from the chairs and stretching spiky-black-jean-clad legs out in front of him, the young man said, “You can sit down… I don’t know what’s taking him so long, but he’s gotta be finished soon…”
Tacitly declining the invitation, Hajime glanced down the hall at the closed door to Aoshi’s office. “You’d think with as much as he prefers to be left alone, he wouldn’t schedule appointments so close together.”
The young man laughed. “You’ve met him, huh?”
“Many times.”
“And here I thought I knew all his regulars.” The young man, Hajime found when he turned back, was gazing thoughtfully up at him. “I must just have missed you every time. You come here a lot?”
“Sometimes.” Hajime’s tone was slightly skeptical at the prying question. He didn’t really care who or what the guy was, or he would already have pushed past the somewhat blaring thoughts into a deeper part of his head to find out, but he couldn’t help feeling a little curious about a punk teenager he’d never seen before that seemed to know Aoshi as well as he did.
“He dig up for work you,” the kid wondered, “or what?”
Hajime raised a brow. “None of your business.”
The young man scowled faintly, coiling back into a less relaxed position. Hajime was interested to see a slight aura appear around him at this, but it faded along with the scowl as the young man shook his head. Then he reached out. “I’m Sano,” he said.
Wondering why they were doing this, Hajime stared at the extended hand for a moment before shaking it and giving his own name.
“I see red,” Sano explained unnecessarily, stretching his legs out again and putting his hands behind his head. “Aoshi keeps me medicated.” His grin turned somewhat harried. “I especially don’t need to be dealing with this shit this week; I’ve got papers to write and finals.”
Hajime nodded his understanding. Sano, he guessed — actually, it was more of a sense by now than a guess — went to the local college, and angry shades were undoubtedly distracting at the end of a semester.
“You really can sit down.” Sano patted the seat next to him.
“I have no desire to sit on your dirty footprints.”
“Wow, fine.” There was that aura again, flaring up with Sano’s annoyance. “Jerk.”
Hajime smirked. “You don’t just see red,” he observed.
“No,” Sano replied, a little wearily. “I absorb ’em for people sometimes; good way to make money, which you probably know, but then I have to find a way to get rid of it all.”
With a disdainful laugh Hajime said, “Stupid of you to absorb anything when you knew you had finals coming up.”
As he’d expected, Sano flamed again. “Hey, I’m not just going to–” But his anger faded as he realized Hajime had done it deliberately. Then he seemed torn between mild appreciation and continued irritation at being manipulated. Eventually he settled on a low simmer, his angry aura minimal and his face merely resigned.
“Just doing my job,” Hajime murmured complacently.
Sano snorted.
At that moment, the door at the end of the employees’ hallway opened, and they heard someone saying, “Thank you very much, Mr. Shinomori!” in a tone far too bright for Mr. Shinomori to be likely to appreciate. Sano stood and watched the cheerful customer emerge from the hall. Then he turned to Hajime and smiled slightly. “Well, it was good to meet you,” he said with a wave. And for some reason he actually seemed to mean it.
Hajime hesitated, then nodded. He saw no reason not to, since he would probably never run into the guy again.
To dial the number he’d been given, Sano found himself a little hesitant. The man hadn’t exactly been pleasant to him when they’d met before, after all. What eventually convinced him was the reflection that the worst that could possibly happen was Hajime being rude to him again and perhaps hanging up without listening to everything he had to say — whereas the best that could happen was getting rid of this little problem. Sano glanced over his shoulder, grimaced, and hit the ‘send’ key on his phone.
“This is Hajime,” came the voice he’d expected after only a few rings.
“Hey,” Sano began. “You probably don’t remember me, but I met you at Forest of Four, like, last December…” He cleared his throat. “My name’s Sano… I see red… You were there with a sword…” He paused, waiting for Hajime’s acknowledgment. Hajime, however, said nothing, and eventually Sano went on. “Well, Aoshi says you’re good, and I’ve got a problem. There’s this shade that’s been hanging around for a couple of weeks now — I mean hanging around me, specifically, not just around somewhere where I go or anything; it’s like the damn thing is haunting me, but I have no idea who it came from or why it would be — and I can’t get rid of it.”
“Red?” Hajime asked.
“That’s the thing!” Sano turned to face the shade, which was still drifting around his living room. “It’s perfectly red! I should be able to deal with it, but every time I absorb it it just comes back! It’s weird, too; it’s not… solid… like they usually are. There’s this empty shape of a person, and the red’s around that like an outline.”
Hajime’s tone sounded completely different than before as he asked, “When you say you absorb it and it ‘comes back,’ what exactly do you mean?” He seemed far more interested all of a sudden.
“I mean the same anger comes back,” answered Sano in some aggravation. “It’s like it never ends; no matter how much I absorb, there’s always more! And I can’t just keep taking it in, or I get so mad I start destroying stuff!”
“And this shade follows you around?”
“Yeah.”
“No matter where you go?”
“Yeah… to school and everything.”
“Do you know the park off 32nd street?”
“Uh, yeah?” Sano was fairly certain he did, anyway. “The one by that toy store?”
“Can you meet me there in half an hour?”
“Um…” This was not what he’d expected at all. “Yeah, sure.” Of course, he’d been basing his expectations on the one brief conversation they’d had and Aoshi’s warning that Hajime was neither a people person nor likely to want to do any kind of work for free.
“I’ll see you there, then.” And Hajime ended the call.
Sano’s car being a piece of shit, he didn’t greatly appreciate having to drive to a park twenty minutes away, and from the suggestion of locale he guessed Hajime didn’t live in the Asian district. He hadn’t objected, though, since he was the one essentially demanding favors in this situation. He did wish Hajime had named a longer space of time, however; he could have taken the bus.
The place had a playground, a field with a backstop, and its own parking lot. Here Hajime waited, when Sano arrived, beside a really nice car. Although individual jobs tended to pay fairly well, being an exorcist was still an uncertain profession at best, given the inconsistency of the work, and Sano wouldn’t have thought anyone in that trade could afford such a nice vehicle; Hajime must have some other source of income.
As when they’d met at Aoshi’s store, the exorcist wore a suit and tie; it looked great, but Sano had to wonder if he dressed that way all year round. March wasn’t too bad, but in a month or two most days would be far too warm outside for a suit coat. Hajime also carried a sword again, though Sano wasn’t entirely certain it was the same sword.
Hajime didn’t bother with a real greeting, only asked, “Where’s the shade?”
Sano had been absorbing so much angry energy lately, thanks to his unusual visitor, that it was good to have an object on which to release some of it. “Hi to you too!” he said in annoyance, and stalked out of the parking lot toward a bench near the playground. Hajime followed, and as Sano took a seat he informed him with less indignation, “It sometimes takes him a while to catch up when I go somewhere unfamiliar. I tried to lose him that way for a while, but he always found me again.”
“‘He?'” echoed Hajime.
“‘He’ like ‘aitsu,'” Sano shrugged, citing a pronoun that, while it carried a masculine connotation, was not necessarily limited to it.
Hajime nodded. So obviously he belonged to the relatively large segment of the city’s population that spoke Japanese, whether or not he lived in the Asian district. Not that this surprised Sano, given his accent.
“So what’s your deal?” Sano wondered somewhat idly, slumping down so as to lean his head against the back of the bench. “I mean, what do you see?”
“Everything.”
Sano sat up straight. “Really? That’s awesome!” Those that could see shades of all colors were incredibly rare.
Hajime seemed to add, “In white,” almost against his will — as if he felt compelled to be honest but was as irritated at the compulsion as he was at the fact.
“Oh.” Sano sat back again. That made it less significant. Still must be fairly convenient for exorcism, though.
“So tell me about this unusual shade,” said Hajime in a somewhat dictatorial tone.
“He showed up, um…” Sano had to think for a moment.
“You should take better notes on things like this,” Hajime broke in derisively. Sano believed this particular statement was meant to be provoking, and didn’t mind at all. If Hajime could handle his anger, it was definitely a relief to let it out.
“I’m not a pro, OK?” was his irritated retort. “I only take notes at school. Anyway, I think it was just at the end of February… the twenty-fifth, I’m pretty sure. So it’s been almost exactly three weeks — not long enough for him to get used up… except, like I told you, I’ve used him up I think five times now.”
“What were you doing when he showed up?”
Sano scratched his head. “Homework? I think. No,” he corrected himself, “I think I’d finished what I was working on and was just messing around online.”
“Porn?” asked Hajime, without apparent implication.
“What?” Sano was more surprised than anything else. “Is that supposed to make me mad? It was just normal websites and shit.” Who really got their porn from the internet, anyway? That stuff was brutal; no amount of anti-virus or spyware-killing software could make that sex safe.
Hajime smirked, and continued with his interrogation. “Had you done any magic any time beforehand that might have attracted the shade?”
“I don’t really ‘do magic,'” replied Sano, scratching his head. “So, no. Least not that I’m aware of.”
“No friends at your home casting spells? No recent séances?”
“Nope.”
“Have you tried the medicine you get from Aoshi? Does it inhibit your ability to see this shade?”
“Yes and no. I usually don’t take the stuff except when something’s going on I really need to concentrate on, because…” Actually there was no real reason to get into that; Hajime undoubtedly wasn’t interested. “Anyway, yeah, I tried it; it didn’t work. I mean, it worked a little, but not enough. This shade’s pretty strong; I could still feel the anger.”
Hajime nodded, and then unexpectedly asked precisely what Sano had just been thinking he wouldn’t be interested in knowing.
“Oh,” replied Sano with a shrug, “I don’t take it when I don’t have to because it makes my head…” He gestured vaguely to the organ in question. “Fuzzy. Blurs my magical senses, I guess, is the best way to put it.”
“And that bothers you, even though you don’t really do magic?”
“Yeah, it’s like… it’s like having a sinus infection: there’s this unpleasant feeling that maybe doesn’t actually stop you from doing anything, but you can’t ignore it.”
Again Hajime nodded. He was about to say something else (possibly criticize Sano’s incomplete description of sinus infections), but at just that moment Sano felt washing over him the anger that had become all too familiar these days. “Oh, fuck,” he growled, interrupting his companion. “Here he comes.”
The shade appeared exactly as Sano had described it. That is to say, to a necrovisually colorblind exorcist, the shade could easily be pictured as exactly what Sano had described. What Hajime actually saw came close enough: a glowing white haze approaching across the park’s green field at that uncannily swift but somehow leisurely speed shades usually moved with; something more oblong than the typical amorphous but generally spherical shape favored by the collections of mindless emotional energy people often left behind when they died — and, indeed, as it drew closer, visibly hollow inside. Once it had begun hovering around their bench, in fact, Hajime thought he could make out the vaguely humanoid shape of its center.
Sano stood and walked a few paces across the sidewalk into the grass. He turned, and, with a scowl, flung out his arms. “Meet my stalker,” he said as the shade moved to resume its orbit around him.
Hajime also stood, unsheathed his sword, and approached. The glowing figure in the air didn’t seem to react to him at all, only drifted slowly and apparently aimlessly around Sano. This was odd; usually angry shades were (predictably enough) aggressive, one of the reasons they were a problem. But this one just floated.
The sword Aoshi had modified for him in December had so far proven worth every one of the considerably many dollars Hajime had spent on it, and did not let him down now. As he drew nearer, the blade smoothly, quickly turned red — at which Sano made an admiring sound, but said nothing. Bracing himself, concentrating on the removal of the shade from existence, Hajime thrust the sword into the glow in front of him.
Whoever had left this anger behind had been strong-willed and persistent, and perhaps a little crazy. The anger itself was fierce and gave the impression, somehow, of being only the tip of the iceberg — wherever it came from, there was a lot more of it. And for all this, it wasn’t a problem to deal with. The aura writhed, clinging to the figure in its center, did not counterattack, and soon gave way to Hajime’s steady desire for its dissipation. Slowly the air cleared; the aura vanished, rendering the floating figure invisible.
Invisible, but not absent. Without the shade anger, in fact, it was discernible on its own, though Hajime couldn’t have described how he sensed its presence. But there was one thing he felt at least closer to certain of now. He returned to the bench and sat down again, thoughtful.
Sano joined him there. “Too easy, huh?” he commented, gesturing to the air where the shade had been. “But then it always comes back.”
Hajime nodded slowly.
“So what do you think?”
“I think…” Hajime said, “that you’ve got a real ghost here.”
Again Sano sat bolt upright in surprise. “What? Are you serious?”
“You notice it doesn’t attack.”
“Yeah, that is kinda weird.”
“And the shape.”
“Shit…”
They sat still for a while, staring at almost nothing — though Hajime thought he could already see a faint glow gathering around the invisible spirit again.
Finally Sano muttered in wonder, “A ghost… a real ghost…”
Shades, Hajime’s stock in trade, were a measurable, understandable phenomenon. But ghosts… ghosts were another story. Nobody knew why, every once in a great while, a human soul with thoughts and emotions and memories intact would remain after its body had died. An exorcist considered himself lucky to hear about a ghost cropping up somewhere during his career. Dealing with a real ghost could make an exorcist’s reputation. Which was why Hajime had come out here to meet Sano at all upon hearing the description of the apparition haunting him.
From the white aura that was definitely gathering again, Hajime looked down to the sword that lay for now across his lap. Interestingly, the blade had never quite lost its red tinge, as if the angry aura had never actually gone.
“But who would be haunting me?” Sano finally wondered.
“You have no idea?”
“No! I haven’t had anyone die any time recently… my grandma went about five years ago, but that’d be way too long for her to be showing up now, and she wasn’t this angry anyway.”
“You’d probably know if it was a close relation in any case.”
Sano nodded, and another long silence followed as they watched the ghost’s aura grow and Hajime contemplated. Finally he said, “I’d like to have my familiars take a look at this.” He had hesitated about this because taking the ghost anywhere would involve taking Sano to the same place, and inviting a client to his own home pushed some boundaries. But so did encountering an actual ghost… and, considering they hadn’t actually discussed services and payment yet, Sano wasn’t exactly a client anyway.
Sano seemed less interested in those particular boundaries, and instead commented, “Don’t think I’ve ever heard of an exorcist with familiars before.”
Hajime shrugged. “I’m more of a communicator than a necrovisual.”
“Oh.” Then Sano sat up straight yet again, demanding, “So does that mean you’ve been reading my mind this whole time?”
Hajime smirked. “Not if I could help it.”
“So why are you an exorcist, then?” Sano asked this in some haste, a little flustered, making a very obvious attempt not to think anything he didn’t want Hajime to hear. When people did this, the result was usually that the thought they wanted to repress got broadcast loudly enough for Hajime to catch it even without trying. In this case, somewhat to his surprise, it was, …probably heard me thinking what a sexy voice he’s got…
Young men finding Hajime’s voice sexy — or, rather, anyone finding anything about Hajime sexy — was an extraordinary (and unsought) occurrence, and he had to admit it threw him off a bit. Fortunately, Sano’s question was one everyone even a little involved in magic asked when they found out he didn’t make his living in the branch where he had the most natural talent, so he had a ready answer. “None of the communication career options appealed to me.”
“I hear the government loves communicators, though.”
“Mostly to monitor and control the general awareness of magic.”
“So you’d rather be beating up shades than brainwashing people?” Sano shrugged slightly. “I guess that makes sense.” Hajime got the feeling Sano thought so because the idea of beating something up was so much more straightforward than that of brainwashing.
This largely pointless exchange had moved them past the bulk of Sano’s nervousness regarding Hajime’s telepathic abilities (as well as the bulk of Hajime’s disorientation regarding Sano’s thoughts about him), so Hajime stood and said, “My familiars may be able to confirm whether or not this is a real ghost.” For good measure he added, “Since you obviously can’t tell.”
It worked. Sano jumped up as well, flaring bright again, and retorted, “Well, neither can you!”
“Why don’t you follow me to my house?”
Sano’s angry aura dissipated and was followed by no notable resurgence; he seemed to have a significant excess of internalized energy that couldn’t possibly be making his day-to-day life any easier. And since it was amusing to watch him get mad, Hajime would gladly try to draw it out. So as he headed toward his car and Sano hastened to catch up, he commented idly, “And try not to rear-end me or anything.”
The next thing Hajime said to Sano, a few miles later, was, “You can’t park there.”
“Wha-” Sano looked around and observed the fire hydrant he hadn’t noticed before. “Oh. Well, how long do you think this is going to take?”
“At least long enough for your friend to catch us up,” Hajime replied dryly. “And beyond that, I don’t know.”
“Hmm.” Sano started to consider whether he could get away with leaving his car in a no-parking zone for an afternoon in an area like this, but eventually based his decision on the expression on Hajime’s face. This was the third time now he’d had to start his car today at Hajime’s bidding.
It was a nice old neighborhood, the kind filled with an eclectic blend of housing styles in an equally extensive range of sizes. Hajime’s home didn’t look extravagantly big, and had a very boring, plain front yard, but the property values around here were probably pretty high, so Sano thought the odds were still on Hajime having some kind of income other than what he made chasing shades.
The legal spot he found to park in was halfway down to the next street, so Sano was grumbling by the time he got back to the small driveway entirely occupied by Hajime’s car. The older man gave a condescending smile and gestured for Sano to follow him across a patio to the side door he’d evidently already unlocked.
Hajime was perhaps five feet into the house, and Sano, just closing the door behind them, had barely had a chance to start looking around at the kitchen into which they’d walked, before a cat, jumping off the counter nearest the door, wrapped itself around Hajime’s legs with a long, screeching meow. Hajime nudged the animal out of the way so he could step further into the room to allow Sano to do the same; then he bent and picked the cat up by the scruff of its neck. It didn’t seem to mind; in fact, it immediately climbed onto his arm and ran up to his shoulder, where it began nuzzling his head.
“I’ve told you to stay off the kitchen counters,” Hajime said to it.
The cat gave another high-pitched meow.
“That doesn’t excuse you,” Hajime replied.
A second cat appeared in a doorway that apparently led from kitchen into a hallway. This one didn’t seem nearly as excited as the other, younger cat, and after a brief meowed greeting sat aloofly looking on. It was mottled brown and grey and black, whereas the smaller one on Hajime’s shoulder was black with white paws.
“I’m sure you did,” said Hajime.
Sano could do nothing but stare. Cats? Really? And one of them of a decidedly kittenish nature? These were the familiars of this harsh, suit-clad, sword-wielding exorcist?
Hajime looked over at him with a faint smirk. “What were you expecting?”
Sano didn’t worry much that Hajime had been intentionally prying into his head at that moment; his astonishment and skepticism had undoubtedly been plain on his face. He did, however, try his best to suppress the mental image of a sleek rattlesnake with hypnotic yellow eyes that sprang up in response to Hajime’s question — to no avail, if Hajime’s faint snort was any indication.
Just then, the little cat launched itself unexpectedly from Hajime’s shoulder across four feet of empty space onto Sano. It didn’t fly quite far enough, and scrabbling claws dug into Sano’s shoulder as the animal tried to get onto it. With a noise of surprise and pain, he raised his hands to help the cat up and try to keep it from ruining his t-shirt. Once it had its balance, it bumped its little head into his ear and meowed at him.
“He’s bringing a shade here,” Hajime answered the cat’s question. “I think it may be a ghost, and I want you two to take a look at it.”
The little cat’s whiskers tickled Sano’s ear, and he couldn’t tilt his head far enough away to make it stop. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that the other cat had come into the room and now sat at his feet, looking up at him. “Hey, stop!” Laughter colored his tone despite his best efforts as the little one continued pushing at him.
Smirking again, Hajime let this go on for a while before stepping forward to the rescue. Lifting the cat off Sano with one hand, he said, “This is Misao.” He replaced her on his own shoulder. “And that’s Tokio,” he added, pointing to the other. She gave a dignified meow.
“Hi, cats,” Sano said with a wave.
Misao was still looking at Sano curiously, and now said something in shrill cat-talk.
“Probably not,” Hajime replied. “The shade follows him around, so it will catch up with us soon.”
Bending to pet the older cat, Tokio, Sano continued to listen in bemusement to the conversation he could only understand half of. Misao said something excited, to which Tokio replied disdainfully, and then Hajime said, “Tokio, your self-righteousness isn’t fooling anyone. Misao, you had some this morning.”
Crawling down Hajime’s arm and then dropping to the floor, complaining the entire way, Misao proceeded to jump on Tokio and start wrestling with her rather ineffectually (considering Tokio was at least twice her size).
Sano stood straight with a laugh, withdrawing his hand from what had become a swift-moving bundle of batting paws and gently biting mouths. He had no idea what to say.
Hajime gave him a look that said he didn’t need to say anything, which gave Sano something to say: “Stay out of my head!”
“I’m not in your head,” Hajime replied mildly. “You’re just projecting. Haven’t you had any training?”
The anger abruptly flaring off Sano in response to this clearly stopped the cats’ mock battle (which had ranged to the other end of the kitchen) and caught their interest, for they came over to him again — one eagerly, the other sedately. Misao stopped just in front of Sano’s left boot, and, after a couple of heaving, wiggling motions, leaped straight up to dig her claws into his knee and scrabble upward. Sano made a noise of pain at the same moment the kitten let out a similar protest when her stomach evidently came into contact with the spikes at his knees.
“Explain your pants to Misao,” Hajime commanded, turning away toward the refrigerator.
“My… what?” Sano was helping Misao up onto his shoulder again, though precedent indicated she probably wouldn’t remain there long. Recovering, however, he directed his next words at the little cat. “Yeah, my pants have spikes on them. Probably not the best thing to climb. Can you understand me? I’m not a communicator…”
She gave a chirping mew pretty clearly an affirmative, while at about the same moment Tokio from the floor had something to say as well.
“Now explain to Tokio what you do,” was Hajime’s next instruction. He emerged from the fridge with a couple of cans of beer, one of which he non-verbally offered to Sano.
Accepting the Asahi Dry with surprised gratitude, Sano crouched down to pet Tokio again, setting the can on the floor and opening it absently with his free hand. “I see red,” he told the cat. For all he knew cats made some of the best familiars available, it still seemed strange to be talking to someone whose eyes were slitted and head tilted as he scratched her jaw. “I absorb angry shades, and then I always have extra anger left over. Would you stop?” This last was aimed at Misao, who was bumping again, tickling him with her little whiskers once more as she meowed something right into his ear.
“She wants to know why your pants have spikes,” Hajime supplied from where he leaned against a counter, drinking his beer and watching in amusement.
“Why are my pants important?” Sano wondered, talking half to the cat and half to its human familiar.
“It’s important to her,” Hajime shrugged.
Tokio said something at this point that seemed to irritate Misao again, for once more the kitten flung herself off the shoulder she’d made her seat and attacked the older cat. Sano took up his beer, stood straight, and watched Tokio bat Misao around the kitchen. It might not have been what he’d expected, but this was really funny. With familiars like these, you’d probably never get lonely. Of course, their effectiveness at recognizing ghosts had yet to be seen.
“Tokio’s been with me for four years now,” Hajime said, whether in response to Sano’s unspoken thoughts, or just because he felt the right moment to explain this, Sano couldn’t guess. “Her senses are well developed. She’s never encountered a ghost before, as far as I know, but I have no doubt she’ll be able to tell the difference.”
“And Misao?”
Hajime smirked. “She’s learning.”
Misao clearly realized she’d just been undervalued, for she flung herself at Hajime’s ankle, little claws blazing. Sano laughed as Hajime bent to pick her up again and the cat twisted and clawed her way around his hand onto his arm and up to his shoulder. Hajime’s suit looked nice at a glance, as had the one he’d worn when they’d first met in December, but now Sano bet that a closer inspection would prove them, and probably any other piece of clothing in his wardrobe, full of little claw-pricks and pulled threads.
Misao began batting at Hajime’s ear, which action he placidly ignored. “Let’s go sit down.”
He led Sano into a small front room somewhat sparsely furnished in a mixture of American and Japanese styles. Sano had already guessed the man had either moved here from Japan or at least come from a more strongly Japanese background in America than Sano had, but thought this wasn’t the moment to ask. They sat on the sofa — leather; must have been expensive — and set their drinks on coasters on a chabudai used here as a coffee table. The cats accompanied them, Misao having at some point, unseen by Sano, abandoned Hajime’s shoulder again; and now the little one leaped onto the table, skidded right across its smooth surface, and fell off the other side.
Sano was beside himself with laughter at this sight, Tokio made some disdainful remark from where she sat primly by Hajime’s leg, Hajime reminded Misao she wasn’t allowed on the coffee table either, and Misao herself couldn’t seem able to decide whom to assault first. She leaped at Tokio, who neatly dodged her and jumped up onto the sofa; she dove for Sano’s feet, but was thwarted by his boots; and finally she went for Hajime’s ankles again, since above the tops of his shiny businessman shoes he was unprotected except by cloth. And at about this point Sano’s laughter faded and he started to lose track of the situation when he felt the shade — ghost? — once again drawing near.
The cats sensed it not long after he did. Tokio jumped down from where she’d apparently been waffling over whether or not to sit on Hajime’s lap, and Misao abandoned Hajime’s legs with a perky swiveling of head and pricking of ears. They watched the opposite wall with the taut attention they might have given the sound of a skittering mouse, and Sano half expected them to leap forward to the attack the moment the shade appeared. He only wished it were something as innocuous as a mouse…
It was definitely a ghost. So Tokio stated after sitting, placid but for the twitching end of her tail, staring up at the thing as it moved gently across the small living room.
Definitely a ghost, added Misao, who’d been galloping around beneath and occasionally rising onto hind feet. And to the counterance of anyone’s suspicions that she hadn’t sensed this herself but just piggybacked off Tokio’s pronouncement, she added that it was a ghost, but covered in shade.
Hajime nodded, thinking this an apt description. And a ghost covered in shade would probably prove somewhat difficult to deal with.
Sano had been laughing at Misao’s antics, but simultaneously growing more and more tense as the cats examined the glowing form. At Hajime’s nod he demanded impatiently, “Well?”
“Oh, yes,” Hajime said as if he’d just remembered, “you can’t understand them.” He was already developing a theory, though, about Sano the casual necrovisual that claimed not to be a communicator but was comprehensible to familiars and didn’t like to have his magical senses clouded…
When Sano’s usual irritation appeared, Tokio remarked that it was the same as the energy surrounding the ghost.
Hajime replied to her instead of to Sano, just to see if Sano would become more angry. “Yes, he’s been absorbing it trying to deal with this, but it hasn’t been working.”
Tokio believed this no wonder, because… but Hajime couldn’t catch the rest of her statement as Sano interrupted:
“Stop having conversations I can’t fucking understand and tell me what they think!”
Chuckling at the vehemence of the command, Hajime obeyed, briefly. “It’s definitely a ghost.”
Sano turned brown eyes beneath knitted brows toward the glowing shape, which still circled him aimlessly, and commented (not for the first time that day), “Shit.”
Misao complained that she couldn’t hear anything from the ghost, and wondered why it didn’t talk. Which was a good question.
Taking the last sip of beer from the can and replacing the latter on the table, Hajime stood and began to follow the ghost’s slow progress back and forth through the room. Up close, it felt slightly different, and he concentrated on that difference, trying to describe it to himself. Finally he decided that the angry shade energy swathing the ghost and the ghost itself had each a distinct sense about them; and one, in wrapping the other so thoroughly, masked it to the point where the ghost could only be detected through the anger at close proximity.
The anger gave him a headache at that proximity, however, so he finally stepped back. How had Sano lived with this thing for three weeks? Not to mention absorbing all the anger off it five times?
“Well?” the young man demanded again.
Hajime continued pensively watching the object of their discussion. “Now that we know it’s a ghost,” he finally said, “we need to find some way to communicate with it. But the shade energy is probably going to get in the way.”
“How can someone be a ghost and a shade?” Sano was clearly about to elaborate on his confusion, but evidently couldn’t quite articulate it and decided not to try.
Hajime understood him, though: shades were merely leftover strong emotion combined with the energy of death, and, since they were created at the moment of death, were limited to a finite amount. Once that moment of death had ended, no more death force remained to create a shade out of an emotion… so even if the ghost was angry, how did that anger continually translate into a shade? Or did the very presence of a ghost generate an ongoing death energy?
But with so little information documented about ghosts, this made only one of a thousand questions that might be answered if they could just talk to the thing.
Hajime was primarily only familiar with the basic techniques of communication magic: enough to keep his own thoughts in check, access the open surface level of others’, and so on. Though he’d picked up a minor skill or two here and there, he’d never bothered with distance telepathy or brainwashing or skimming power from memories or the like, mostly because he’d never been interested enough in what went on in other people’s heads. He wasn’t sure to what extent any level of talent or practice in communication would help with the undead, and necromancy was a skill he’d never had occasion to develop. But he might as well make the attempt.
Resuming his seat on the sofa, he focused on the ghost even more pointedly than before, working to order his thoughts into a direct channel toward it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t even begin to sense a mind in there, nor any thoughts at all analogous with his own. Whether this was due to the shade energy blocking him, or because his powers of communication simply didn’t work on a ghost, he couldn’t tell. So he resorted to the next best thing, or at least the only thing he could think to try next, which was his line of sight: he simply directed his outgoing message at the figure on a physical basis.
Beside him, Sano shifted restlessly, clearly aware Hajime was up to something but restraining himself (for the moment) from demanding to know what. At Hajime’s outgoing thought (merely a greeting and the idea that he wanted to communicate), he stiffened a little; the cats also reacted, looking over at their human somewhat accusingly. Misao wondered what he was trying to do, Tokio remarked that she didn’t think anything was likely to reach the ghost, and Sano demanded, “What was that?” The ghost, however, as Tokio had predicted, didn’t even seem to receive the thought, let alone respond.
“I’m trying to get through to him,” Hajime explained, frowning. Communicative magic probably wouldn’t work, which meant they might have to do the séance thing, and he didn’t think he had any candles.
“Maybe if you got up close…” Sano suggested.
Hajime nodded and rose from the sofa once more. He didn’t approach the ghost again quite yet, but instead went into the kitchen to retrieve the sword he’d set down on the counter when they’d entered the house. He didn’t plan on getting any nearer to that thing than he had to until after dealing with at least some of the angry shade.
Sano made no comment when Hajime returned, nor did he have anything to say as the exorcist drew the sword and advanced on the ghost — but Hajime got an impression from him that he doubted this would work any better than it had before. Hajime rather thought so too, but it had to be attempted.
As previously, the angry energy, though volatile, was worrisomely easy to defeat; Hajime almost thought he could even have done it without the sword. Having replaced the latter in its sheath and set it aside, he then returned to the now-invisible ghost and raised a hand into the space it occupied.
He could definitely sense its presence, but still no trace of a comprehensible mind. He tried first to send another thought at it, then to open himself up to any message the ghost might be trying to broadcast; but the former had no discernible effect and the latter only gave him an instant headache boost.
“It never all quite leaves,” he muttered. He couldn’t see any remaining shade energy, but when he opened himself as he just had, he felt as if he were being battered by a hot, heavy wind.
Sano stood. “Let me see if I can get the rest of it.” Hajime nodded; a combination of techniques might be exactly what they needed.
The only time the ghost seemed to react to anything was when Sano moved. Hajime had been slowly pacing the room in order to keep right next to it as it drifted, but when Sano approached, the thing finally held still. Could it sense that Sano wanted it to? Perhaps, despite claiming not to be a communicator, Sano might have a better chance than Hajime at talking to it.
Now he’d reached up so his hand hovered in the air near Hajime’s, and his face had taken on an expression of angry concentration. Shades had a certain resonance that varied from one to the next, and people that absorbed shade energy did so by matching that wavelength precisely. It was about the only field where a talent for feeling a particular emotion became a trade skill. And it seemed Sano was particularly good at getting angry — either that or he’d been around this specific spirit so much that it only took him a moment to attune to it and draw off the last remaining shade energy into himself.
But it wasn’t the last. Or at least the action didn’t help. Continued attempts at communicating with the ghost, either giving or receiving ideas, met with the same failure as before, and that sense of being attacked (and the near-migraine that went with it) did not diminish. Hajime still couldn’t begin to sense a consciousness anywhere in there, and not knowing whether or not he should be able to only complicated things.
So did Sano’s increasing anger. The young man hadn’t moved from where he stood facing Hajime (across the ghost, as it were) with his hand in the air, but he’d closed his eyes and was looking — and feeling — more and more angry. The sense of its growing radiation interfered somewhat with Hajime’s concentration on something that wasn’t working anyway; so finally Hajime put his own raised hand over the younger man’s, which had by now clenched into a fist, and pushed it out of the ghost’s space.
“This isn’t working,” he said quietly.
Sano’s eyes started open, the irate gleam in them surprisingly hot and strong. It occurred to Hajime, looking into what seemed at the moment an inferno of unfathomable depth, that Sano might be dangerous if he absorbed too much anger; not that it was likely to be anything Hajime couldn’t handle, but they must remember to keep the lethal weapons out of Sano’s reach at such moments.
Sano jerked away from Hajime and the ghost, turning abruptly to stalk back over to the sofa and throw himself down. “Damn right it’s not,” he growled. “You were right: there’s just no end to the fucking stuff.”
Hajime also stood back, out of the way of the headache-inducing energy, letting his mental shields rise back into place, and nodded again. It looked like they really would have to try silly séance business, candles and all, and it was so hard to get cats to sit still for things like that, and he honestly didn’t think it would work any better than what they’d already done — though, once again, the attempt had to be made.
He glanced at his watch. It was getting to be mid-afternoon already, somehow, and they’d made no progress except to confirm that the thing was, in fact, a ghost. If the lack of results continued and Sano got much angrier, he might decide to take his ghost elsewhere. And though not exactly a paying customer (yet… though Hajime sensed ‘ever’ might be a better term), he’d presented the exorcist with a unique opportunity Hajime didn’t want to lose. He would talk to this ghost, no matter what it took. Which meant he needed to try to keep Sano happy.
“This might take a while,” he said. “How do you feel about ordering Chinese?”
Sano enlists the help of exorcist Hajime in discovering the nature of the unusual angry shade that's haunting him.
Best friends Heero and Quatre have their work cut out for them assisting longtime curse victims Duo and Trowa.
During Plastic (part 80), Cairo thinks about thinking and other recent changes in his life.
A look at how Hajime and Sano are doing.
A look at how Trowa and Quatre are doing.
A look at how Heero and Duo are doing.
A meeting between Kamatari and Wufei.
Couple analysis among Heero, Duo, Trowa, and Quatre.
Quatre undergoes an unpleasant magical change; Heero, Duo, and Trowa are forced to face unpleasant truths; and Hajime and Sano may get involved.
During La Confrérie de la Lune Révéré (parts 33-35), Sano's 178-day wait is over as what Hajime has been fearing comes to pass.
During Guest Room Soap Opera (part 3), Cathy learns a lot of interesting facts and Trowa is not happy.
A few days before the epilogue of La Confrérie de la Lune Révéré, Duo and Sano get together to watch football and discuss relationships and magical experiences; Heero listens in on multiple levels.
Blood Contingency
I’m so rarely afraid of anything that when I do happen to encounter something that scares me, I hardly know what to do about it.
It would be easier to decide on a course of action if the source of my fear were something that might reasonably frighten a normal man — but this sudden, irrational wariness of the teenager leaning against the wall near my apartment door isn’t really something I know what to do with. I stop, under the pretense of checking something in the car before I get out, to examine the stranger.
About my height, though he’s slouching and that estimate could be off; a pale, Asian face with dark-lashed eyes; shaggy brown hair — I can’t tell how long, as it’s pulled back; seems fairly lanky, though not a lightweight; and could be anywhere from seventeen to twenty-two-or-three. He doesn’t appear threatening — at least not in any way I, as a cop, would normally consider threatening; there are, of course, any number of things that could be hidden under the jacket he’s wearing, but his bearing doesn’t suggest him ready to attack at any moment. So why does the very sight of him send a chill through my entire body?
Afraid I may be, inordinately and unusually so, but a coward I am not. I’ve already determined that he doesn’t mean to attack me, and, besides that, I’m wearing a bullet-proof vest and have a gun and a nightstick at my side. Closing the car door with no more firmness or haste than I normally use, I head up the sidewalk toward the building without hesitation. “Can I help you?” I ask the young man casually.
“I was waiting for you, actually,” he replies, and though on the surface his tone is equally casual, there’s something immovably… hard… in the voice… some cold note I can’t quite place, but which sends a slight shiver up my spine and puts me even more on my guard.
“And what can I do for you?” I ask, stopping before the stranger without a flinch.
He straightens up and pulls empty hands out of the pockets of his jacket. They’re unnaturally pale in front of the black leather and even the blue jeans they fall against as they drop to his side. He’s now looking me very intently in the face; I think that staring into his eyes, which are, like his skin, uncannily bright, might well and probably should increase the irrational fear, but somehow it doesn’t. In fact, the effect is rather the opposite.
“There’s a lot of things you could do for me, Joe,” he says after a long moment of silence. “It’s gonna be up to you like always, though.”
I wonder briefly if I’m being sexually propositioned, but dismiss the notion as implausible at best. Even the boldest prostitutes don’t wait for police officers outside their own homes and then make their advances in cryptic, stalker-like language — and this isn’t the neighborhood for it at any rate. It’s also far from the center of what little gang activity there is in this city, as well as the worst areas of drug-related intrigue. Thus I’m really at a loss what this young man who knows my name and address could possibly want from me here at night with empty hands and an aura of danger.
But, once again, I am far from cowardly. “I think you’d better tell me exactly who you are and what you’re doing here.”
He gives a wry smile — almost rueful, I think — and shakes his head. “You’ll find that out one way or another,” he says. “This is your first chance.”
“Are you threatening me?” I ask, my cool tone far from a reflection of my state of mind.
He shrugs. “Kinda. I’ll be back in a week.” And, replacing his hands in his pockets, he turns and begins to walk away.
I’m surprised and annoyed. That someone should show up like this outside my home, frighten me as nothing has for a decade, and then walk so carelessly away after making such incomprehensible remarks… it isn’t merely unsettling and bizarre, it’s irritating. However, as I’m opening my mouth to tell him to come back and explain himself, my entire attention is arrested by something — yet another inexplicably disconcerting object that really should mean nothing to me — something that sends another shiver up my spine.
There is a large symbol in white on the back of the stranger’s jacket: some sort of Japanese character, I think, though this is just my default guess because I happen to have a Japanese-American girlfriend. But something about it freezes me to the spot and silences whatever protest or demand I was about to make. It isn’t an innately frightening sign; it doesn’t convey any meaning to me whatsoever; it certainly does not, in its design or general aspect, have any sort of hypnotic effect; but somehow it’s riveting. Because it’s… familiar…?
When the young man’s back has disappeared from my sight around the corner, releasing me from the disturbed and absorbed contemplation of the symbol thereupon, my presence of mind returns instantly and informs me that it would be absurdly foolish to let him walk away like that.
However, darting around the corner with quiet, determined footsteps, I find the parking lot completely empty — empty, silent, and calm under the peaceful moon. My eyes stray from one part of my placid and familiar surroundings to the next, my ears straining for any sound out of the ordinary in the quiet neighborhood, for a good five minutes before I turn with yet another shiver and make my way back to the apartment.
Inside, in the comforting skepticism of an air-conditioned and linoleum-floored kitchen, I analyze the confrontation as I mechanically seek out something microwaveable for dinner. I’m realizing now, in even greater annoyance than I was feeling a few minutes ago, that I wasn’t really afraid so much as disturbed by the stranger’s aspect and presence. Something inside me doesn’t want to have anything to do with the guy, even look at him. Of course there’s a certain amount of fear involved in this, but the primary reaction was and is reluctance. As if I really do know, and disapprove of, who he is and what his appearance signifies. Which seems impossible, but there it is.
And then that symbol… what did it mean? And what did it mean that I found it so terribly fascinating that I couldn’t look away or say a word while it was in view? Turning from the busy microwave, I seize a paper towel and the nearest available writing utensil, and do my best to reproduce the image; having a good eye for detail, I think I’ve done fairly well, but it means no more to me now than it did then.
A glance at the clock confirms that it isn’t too late for a phone call, but I can’t decide for a moment whether or not that would be overreacting. Eventually I opt for better-safe-than-sorry and dial Renee’s number.
“You’re calling me on a Wednesday?” she greets me. “What’s the big occasion?”
Ignoring her sarcasm I command, “Grab something to write with.”
“OK,” she says gamely, then, a moment later, “Go ahead.”
I study the figure I’ve jotted down, realizing just how stupid this is going to sound. “Draw a tic-tac-toe board,” I begin.
“Is this our date for the week?” she wonders, but I can hear the scratch of a pencil.
“Yes,” I deadpan. “Now put lines across the top and bottom about the same length as the other horizontal lines.”
“OK…”
“Then add a wide letter U or smile underneath.”
“Oh, I see what we’re doing.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, but it’s not really a fair game… you don’t know any kanji, which means I never get a turn. Where are you seeing this one?”
I find myself oddly reluctant, suddenly, to tell her about the strange young man. Am I hesitant to admit how much he disturbed me? Though unsure if this is my actual motive, the impulse not to mention him is too strong to resist. So I put her off with, “I wasn’t finished.”
“Well, with dashes around and inside the ‘smile,’ and the sides of the ‘tic-tac-toe board’ closed off” — she obviously finds this quite amusing — “you’ve got ‘waru’ or ‘aku,’ which means ‘evil.'”
“Evil,” I repeat slowly. Somehow I’m not surprised. Then, in response to her expectant silence I explain, “I saw it on someone’s jacket and wondered what it meant.”
She laughs. “People wear kanji all over the place and have no idea what they actually say. At least it wasn’t a tattoo.”
“Or a shirt that says, ‘Let’s Begin To Love Myself Over Again?'” I can’t help bringing that up; I never can.
“May I remind you that that was a birthday present?” She’s laughing. “I didn’t buy it.”
“And yet you still wear it.” I really don’t feel like further banter, though, so before she can retort I add, “Thanks for the translation; I have to go.”
She must have observed that my tease was half-hearted, for after noting that I sound tired and promising to call me on Saturday for a date that will not involve tic-tac-toe, she lets me go.
I stand in the kitchen staring at the paper towel for who knows how long, eventually make slow progress with my warmed-up leftovers to the table, and turn on the TV. I don’t pay any more attention to the news than I do to my dinner, however. It’s irritating but predictable: I can’t stop dwelling on the stranger. He was giving me a chance… to do what? He’ll be back in a week… why? And what was it he thought I could do for him? It’s pointless to speculate; if he does come back, presumably I’ll find out… but I hate being left in the dark, sitting back and waiting for my turn to know until it’s too late for action.
Most engrossing, though probably not most important… why was I so perturbed by him? I didn’t know the meaning of the symbol on his back until after he was gone, so why did I find it so riveting, so nearly horrifying? But he probably couldn’t answer those questions even if I felt like making a fool of myself asking them.
The next question is why such a minor event is still bothering me so much now that it’s over. It’s understandably annoying that I was disturbed enough not to act as I logically should have, but why I should be feeling echoes of that agitation even now… why I should be feeling traces of some kind of superstitious premonition, as if that brief encounter was a herald of upheaval… why I should be feeling like there’s something I should remember but that’s just past the edge of my conscious mind… I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to know.
I’m certain that going to bed is not likely to improve my state of mind, but I’m not about to change my habits or disrupt my sleep schedule for some stranger who shouldn’t really be at all unsettling.
It was probably just a prank anyway, and I’ll never see the guy again.
“Saitou,” she said. “With a mysterious, bloodthirsty psychopath murdering his way through Tokyo, I really should have been expecting you.”
“Good morning to you too, doctor,” I returned the greeting. “I’m not surprised to find you here.”
“No,” she replied sardonically, “considering I’ve managed to examine five of these things so far.”
I wasn’t about to mention how lucky I found these combined circumstances. I hadn’t yet had opportunity to examine much physical evidence, so I’d been less upset than I might have at another murder — and far from upset that Takani-sensei, who had no selfish motives or class biases and who knew me better than most, had once again been the closest doctor to the crime. The fact that the pattern had been significantly broken this time was another point in the incident’s favor.
Hironaku was getting excited over the signs of violence, which hadn’t been present at any of the previous scenes. He seemed to be missing the fact that, as usual, the victim had evidently gone peacefully without a struggle — that the smashed dishes, broken table, and dented wall had not been part of the murder — but he’d been with this case since the first corpse and had watched two other investigators make nothing of it, so his enthusiasm was reasonable. As subordinates went, he was a greater combination of tolerable and competent than most; I would probably keep him.
Takani was still kneeling beside the body, looking understandably disheveled. This certainly wasn’t the first time in the last few weeks she’d been summoned to an unusual murder scene in the early morning without even the consolation of being a police doctor. I wasn’t entirely without sympathy, but was still glad she and not some other physician was present.
A few drops of blood on the floor that had evidently come from the victim’s single wound were the only indication as to where the body had originally fallen and how it had lain. Apparently the wife, in her understandable but damnable hysteria at finding her husband the latest of possibly the most bizarre string of murders in Tokyo’s history, had dragged him out of place and might have caused more harm to the scene had her frantic screaming not alerted the neighbors and, subsequently, the police.
Only by chance had there been an officer in the vicinity at all; it wasn’t the type of neighborhood that got much attention from our upstanding and unbiased justice system. And that was the most significant deviation from the pattern here. The murders thus far had fallen into two categories: successful businessmen killed in their own homes, apparently by design; and unemployed lowlifes or homeless killed in the streets, apparently at random. This man had been an unemployed lowlife, yet, by all appearances, had still been specifically tracked to his home and deliberately murdered.
“What can you tell me?” I asked the doctor once I’d finished my methodical look around the room.
“He’s the same as all the rest,” she reported dully, “just fresher. Exsanguination and no trauma as far as I can tell. At least this time you found him soon enough for a proper autopsy.” The last remark was clearly made without much hope that she wouldn’t be the one performing it.
“Time of death?”
“He has no blood,” she reminded me flatly. “That throws everything off. Until the autopsy, I can only guess. Three hours ago, maybe more.”
I nodded as I stared down at the corpse. I hadn’t disbelieved the reports regarding the cause of death, but I hadn’t exactly believed them, either. Not until I’d seen it for myself could something so outlandish seem at all real. And I found myself a good deal more disturbed than I typically was at a murder scene. It wasn’t the abnormally pallid, dry-looking flesh and emaciated, slightly twisted frame that made it so much more horrific than usual… I’d seen bodies barely recognizable as such, turned inside out or strewn in pieces across large expanses, seen rooms so drenched in blood as to make me go temporarily colorblind. This was the exact opposite, and somehow just that… the mere absence, the complete absence of blood… that made it worse than all the rest.
Only the most puerile investigators jumped immediately to insanity as the likely motive for a crime, but this… this had the mark of a madman. Though still a madman with specific goals. The theory the previous investigators had been working with was that we had on our hands a disgruntled, jealous, overly ambitious businessman who’d hired an assassin to give him an edge and had set the killer on a few unrelated victims as well in order to cloud the issue. Not a bad hypothesis… but, typically, its flaws had either never occurred to my predecessors or had been willfully overlooked. Significant among these was a question they had entirely ignored: what would a businessman — or even an assassin — want with such a large volume of blood?
I’d been in town and on the case for several days now and still had no solid theories, and that was a deviation from pattern of another kind. Nothing we knew so far was remotely conclusive; indeed, every new clue we turned up seemed to point in a different direction from the last.
The final deviation was the witness. Every previous victim seemed to have been killed in complete solitude, and a few of them hadn’t even been discovered for days. But this man had been entertaining at the time of death — a guest who’d been knocked hard into a wall and fallen thence onto the table where the sake they’d been sharing had rested… but who might have seen something before that, who might be able to explain why a struggle had been necessary to subdue him but not the man actually being murdered.
I worked my way through the scene once more. I felt like I was missing something, or perhaps that some of this was making more sense to my subconscious than to the surface of my mind. Either way, I didn’t think I was likely to learn anything more from the room at the moment. “Let’s get him out of here. Takani-sensei, you’ll perform the autopsy?”
Hironaku looked at me askance but said nothing.
“Of course,” the doctor answered, heavily but unhesitating, as she rose. She wasn’t happy about this; it was rather outside the boundaries of what she usually dealt with, her connection to the Kamiya dojo notwithstanding… but she was resigned, and not lacking in the aplomb necessary for her profession.
I’d sent for a closed wagon to transport the body, and at my orders a few of the men who waited outside got the latter wrapped and loaded onto the former. “The wife was taken to the south station?” I asked another.
“Yes, sir.”
“Have arrangements made for her for the next couple of days, and one of you stay here to keep the curious off. I’m going to look this place over again after I’ve questioned the witness.” He repeated his acknowledgment, and I left him discussing with the others who would return to the station and who would stand guard.
“I doubt your ‘witness’ is going to have anything to say for some time,” Takani warned me quietly.
“On the off chance that he’s awake and coherent and happened to see something, I’m going to look in on him.”
She was giving me an odd eye, and it seemed she might have something useful to say, but eventually she merely shook her head and remarked, “I won’t have you jeopardizing his recovery.”
I had no answer for this, since each of us knew that, if it came to it, the other would press their side of the issue — and probably knew equally well who would prevail.
By the time I handed the doctor into the cab and took the spot beside her, Hironaku was already seated looking over his notes. While I preferred to keep my thoughts organized in my head where troublesome people couldn’t get their hands on them, I had to appreciate his dedication.
“This murder method…” he remarked as the carriage began to move, then abruptly glanced at the doctor. His expressive face was as plain as a direct question whether he should discuss his theories in front of her. She wasn’t looking at either of us. I nodded.
“It reminds me of some things yakuza bosses have done to scare their people into sticking with them,” he continued slowly. “Or something similar: someone trying to send a message to someone…”
“With as much specific aim as anonymously tacking signs up on lamp-posts,” I replied. “If it’s a message, it could be meant for just about anyone, and that anyone isn’t likely to step forward.”
He sighed. “In any case, we’re dealing with one sick bastard.”
“Or more than one,” I reminded. “Don’t get too caught up in speculation until after we find out what the other man knows.” Not that I wasn’t speculating. I just wasn’t doing it aloud.
With an expression of perturbation, Hironaku nodded. In actuality I feared he might prove a little too emotionally fragile to last long… He hadn’t shown signs of excessive brittleness, but he seemed the type that might crack all at once when things piled up. Still, someone relatively competent for a short while was better than someone hopeless I couldn’t get rid of. Perhaps I could increase his longevity by letting him handle most of the paperwork. That would be doubly useful.
“I do wonder why the other man is alive at all, though,” he murmured thoughtfully after several silent moments. “Our murderer has killed eight people so far… why not this other man?”
“If you’ll allow me to speculate…” Takani had looked up abruptly. “‘Your murderer’ seems to be interested in collecting blood, not committing murder.” It was only very slight, but in her voice was the tone of someone patiently explaining something obvious. Hironaku’s expression in response was slightly amusing; it seemed this thought really hadn’t crossed his mind. Maybe I wouldn’t keep him.
“If he was equipped to extract blood from only one man,” Takani continued, “and had no idea there was anyone else there until he entered…”
“Oh?” Now I was curious, and turned to regard her with a raised brow, wondering what she thought she knew. “Why would he assume his victim was alone?”
“Oh?” she echoed. I got the feeling she was somewhat darkly pleased at having information that I lacked. “None of your fine officers were able to identify the other man?” Finally I comprehended her earlier odd expression as she added pointedly, “I doubt anyone besides the victim knew Tsukioka-san was there, or would be there, at that time. He’s not the type to let people know what he’s planning.”
I nodded slowly. That complicated things.
“…of all the stupid things. A degree in criminology, and they’ve got me hunting vampires.”
Overhearing this at the station the next day is not exactly comforting. Nor is the fact that I make mental connections as fast as I do.
“I don’t know what else to call them, though… I’ve never seen murders like this before, and neither have you.”
Curious as I am — and I am — I decide not to ask. Better not to know the details of this elaborate hoax. It isn’t my case anyway, and it certainly won’t help keep my mind off the strange, pale visitor of last night.
The latter, as I somewhat anticipated, is in and out of my head throughout the day. The same questions I’ve been asking about him all along arise and are steadfastly ignored while I get what I need to do finished. Even more assiduously I ignore the movie lines that keep popping up in my head trying to distract me… things like, “You know how few vampires have the stamina for immortality, how quickly they perish of their own will?” and, “The vampires didn’t realize you were following a human… did they?” and, best of all, “You’re not a full vampire until you’ve made your first kill. You were supposed to be mine… but I couldn’t…” Only then do I realize just how many stupid vampire movies I’ve actually seen. It’s very annoying.
I wonder how the stranger would react if he knew these thoughts. Vaguely putting myself in his place (assuming some sort of reasonable motive for the mysterious behavior), the idea is actually slightly amusing, in a god-forbid sort of way.
The question from last night that returns the most persistently is why this matter continues to bother me so much. Mere unusualness is not enough to justify this kind of devotion of thought. I try to tell myself that it’s the natural result of boring paperwork, that as soon as I’m out on a new case I’ll forget it entirely… but not even boring paperwork has ever led me to reflections this firmly locked on a seemingly unimportant subject before.
Eventually, thinking to drown the fixation with excess information, I give in and ask someone to enlighten me on the ‘vampire’ business. My precinct is given to gossip like some proverbial group of old women, so he’s only too happy to do so — and what I hear is no more than I expected: a couple of apparently-related killings by some unknown whose MO matches what one must assume a vampire’s would be if such creatures existed, right down to the presence of foreign DNA in the neck wounds. Predictably, keeping the press off the occurrences is taking up half my colleague’s energy at the moment.
For all our gossipy habits (and, yes, sadly, I’m forced to include myself in this description), the tales don’t leave the station; as such, the number of people outside the police force who are likely to know about this matter is small (for now, while the press is still in the dark). Therefore, little as I want to assume there are two similar hoaxes going on simultaneously in the same vicinity, I have to believe this is unconnected with my visitor — mostly because if the circumstances were connected, that complicates and darkens something I thought simply unusual.
Wait; similar hoaxes? Why, I wonder in annoyance, am I connecting them at all? Why has such a fantastic concept as vampires attached itself so tenaciously to the visitor in my head? Because he was pale, because he moved quickly and quietly, because I was disturbed by him? How utterly childish of me. Maybe I’ve been working too hard lately. I wonder briefly when I can next take vacation time. Renee would like that, anyway.
“I fucking hate vampires.”
I roll my eyes, and, with an effort of will, force myself to stop thinking about it. And once I’ve torn myself away, I manage, if not entirely without further struggle, to stay away for the rest of the day.
Leaving rather late, having lost track of the time in enthusiasm(?) for my paperwork, as is often the case, I find the parking lot dark and sparse when I finally emerge. Not even the faintest glow of sunset remains on the city-obscured horizon, and I parked in a spot where the lot lights don’t touch. It’s from the shadows near my car, which I haven’t quite reached, that a woman’s voice unexpectedly speaks: “You’ve been contacted.”
Simply because of the brazen oddity of the greeting, yesterday’s occurrence — and all related reflection — springs immediately back into my mind.
Stepping forward into the full light, she displays pale Asian features and bright eyes. When she catches sight of my face she stops moving. “Oh,” she says in a tone of understanding.
Two encounters with washed-out, glowing-eyed, cryptic Asians on two consecutive days is no coincidence — especially given the news, I can’t help but think — so I’m immediately tense, ready to make sure she doesn’t run off. “‘Oh,’ what?” I demand.
Her face takes on a sad expression. “He hasn’t reminded you yet.”
Assuming she’s referring to the young man, and considering he didn’t tell me anything, I have to assume she’s correct.
She looks even more somber at my silence. “I know you’re confused,” she says quietly, “and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. But I can assure you you’ll know everything in time.”
“Everything?” I echo wryly. “Not something I ever wanted to know.”
Her smile matches my tone. “And you won’t want to know most of this. But I’d like at least to assure you that we don’t have any criminal intentions towards you.”
I frown, unable to keep from becoming suspicious at this carefully-worded statement. “Who are you?”
She looks thoughtful for a moment, almost indecisive. Finally she says, “Megumi.”
A Japanese name, I know; Renee is a fan of some trembly-voiced singer called the same thing. That doesn’t tell me much, but it’s better than no information at all. “And your friend’s name?”
Another wry smile. “‘Friend?’ Hmm. Well, his name… I’ll leave that up to him.”
This is getting frustrating. I’m tempted to return to the prank theory, but there’s something about her that seems too serious to disregard. “And what do you want?” I wonder next.
“I want nothing from you,” she says, and her slight emphasis of the word ‘I’ again makes me frown.
“And him?”
“Again, that’s up to him,” she replies.
There’s very little more I can ask her, given that this is not an interrogation and she’s basically told me she isn’t going to tell me anything. And as the silence lengthens, she shakes her head and turns. I don’t feel I should let her walk away, but can’t think of anything to make her stay.
Then, as she puts her back to me but before her first few steps take her out of the ring of light, I see very clearly, slung over her shoulder, a sort of leather holster that contains, unless I’m very much mistaken, a neat row of wooden stakes.
By now even my better judgment is starting to give way, and only my desire to consider this a hoax allows me to keep doing so.
Sagara answered after I’d knocked about four times, opening the door sluggishly and blinking at me for several moments. Then he scowled. Grunting, he withdrew, leaving the way free for me to follow. “I figure if you’re here to kick my ass,” he explained at a grumble, “you might as well do it inside where you won’t wake up all my neighbors.”
“How considerate of you,” was my reply as I shut the door behind me.
“Since when are you in town?”
“Since last week; I’m here for a case.”
“Then I guess I can forgive you for not showing up earlier to kick my ass.”
“Unfortunately, I have business other than kicking your ass today.”
It was the first time I’d been inside his home, and I found it a little neater than I’d expected… mostly because he didn’t seem to own very much. What he did have was enough, however, to provide sufficient clutter that his search for the upper garment he lacked was taking some time. “I thought all your Tokyo cases involved kicking my ass,” he said as he hunted.
“Hn.” I would have had a better reply for this, but I really was here on business — business he was probably going to find even less pleasant than his speculations. “Hurry up and get ready.”
He straightened, his gi in one hand, and threw me a black look. “Like I’m going to take orders from you.”
“You are if you want to hear what happened to your friend.”
The gi dropped to the floor. “Which friend? What happened?!”
“I’ll tell you on the way.”
Hastily now he recovered the article of clothing and shrugged into it, demanding, “On the way where? You didn’t come in a stupid carriage, did you?”
“No. Come on.”
He followed me out the door, not bothering to lock it behind us. Of course, I didn’t know if he ever bothered to lock it.
“Well?” he demanded as we started up the street.
“Have you heard about the recent attacks?” I began.
With a snort he replied, “You’re gonna have to be more specific than that… think about where I live.”
He hadn’t heard, then; he’d have known what I meant without any elaboration otherwise. “Eight people — so far — have been killed by having large quantities of blood drained from their bodies.”
“Eight?? What the fuck are you cops doing? Is one of my friends one of ’em?!”
One of his questions was a very good one, but not one I felt like addressing right now. “He isn’t dead,” I replied. “He was found unconscious next to the body of the latest victim. He’s the first potential witness to any of the attacks.”
Sanosuke drew a deep, angry breath. “You’re an asshole, you know that? Scaring the shit of out me like that for nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. His shoulder was dislocated, his arm broken, and he has a concussion.”
“My god, you are an asshole… Why the hell didn’t you say that before?”
“He’s also incoherent and won’t talk to me.”
“I fucking wonder why,” muttered Sanosuke. “So that’s what this is all about. You want me to help you question one of my friends because you can’t do it yourself. I’d never have known he was hurt otherwise.”
“I’m fairly sure you’re his only real friend, and probably as close to family as he has at this point,” I replied coolly; “you’d have been notified if he died.”
“Shit, it’s Katsu, isn’t it?” His tone had taken on an edge of much greater concern. “Why didn’t you just say so?” When I did not reply he went on in a surly tone, “So what do I get out of this?”
I raised a brow. “Safer streets?” I suggested. “The opportunity to talk to him at all?”
“Ch…” He’d only asked in order to be perverse, I was certain; we both knew he wouldn’t refuse to help in a situation like this. “Hurry the fuck up, then,” he added.
The only reason I hadn’t taken a carriage was that I recalled how difficult he’d been the last time I’d tried to get him to ride in one. The walk between the clinic and his neighborhood took more time than I really wanted to waste, but I’d decided that keeping him in a relatively compliant mood was probably worth it. Still, my impatience to get back and get on with things led me to accede quite easily to his demand that I ‘hurry the fuck up.’
Eventually he recognized the direction we were going. “So he’s at kitsune’s clinic?”
I nodded. “Takani has been lucky enough to examine most of the bodies so far, including this latest one.”
“No wonder I haven’t seen her around lately…” Sagara murmured thoughtfully. I was vaguely surprised at the implication that he saw her around enough to know the difference; I hadn’t thought they got along that well.
As we finally approached the clinic, I broke the silence again. “He has no reason to trust me. But if you can convince him he’s safe in telling you anything that might be related to this matter–”
“Dyou realize what you’re doing?” Sagara broke in.
I glanced at him with a raised brow.
“You’re counting on me,” he stated. Though his tone was nearly flat, it had the air of a defiant announcement. “I’m doing something important for you, and you’re trusting me to do it.”
“You’re the only one who can,” I replied, by which I meant (and he knew it) that if there had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have asked him.
His face darkened briefly, then cleared, and he grinned slightly. “I’m gonna take that as a compliment.”
“Do as you please.”
We’d reached the door, and here Sanosuke paused. “All right, so what am I finding out if I can?”
“Anything he remembers about the attack, anything he thinks might be related to it. The series of events, what the killer was like, and any guess he might have about why the killer chose that victim.”
“You don’t ask much, do you?” wondered Sagara sarcastically.
“I’ll be out here,” I replied.
He shook his head and entered the building.
It took much longer than I expected. Whether this meant Tsukioka had a lot of information to relate, or that he wasn’t lucid enough to relate it quickly, or that Sagara was dominating the conversation talking shit about me, I couldn’t guess — though presumably I would find out soon enough.
The lady doctor, who’d left to get some rest after the autopsy, returned while I was waiting. She didn’t look particularly rested, however; actually, I thought the darkness beneath her eyes was even more pronounced than before. But I restrained myself and didn’t speculate about nightmares or anything less appropriate that might have interrupted her sleep, merely nodded to her.
With a grim expression she glanced from the door to where I was leaning against the wall looking out at the yard. “You found Sanosuke?” she guessed.
I nodded again.
“You know I don’t approve,” she said flatly.
“And you know it’s necessary,” I answered in a similar tone.
She held my eye for a second and then replied more lightly, “I meant your smoking just outside my clinic.” Evidently she knew better than to argue further against disturbing her patient.
I smirked slightly, darkly, as I took another drag. “That’s necessary to keep me from going insane.”
“Yes, this case of yours is enough to have that effect on anyone.” She sounded simultaneously sympathetic and exasperated, though mostly tired. “Just don’t bring it inside.”
Again I nodded, and she disappeared through the door.
Eventually Sanosuke emerged. He was moving slowly, with an unusual restraint on all his limbs, as if he were a patient here and suffering from some invisible wound; but when he looked up and met my gaze, I could see in his face a deep anger just waiting to invigorate him against some unsuspecting target. Breaking eye contact, however, he sat down on the edge of the porch with his back to me.
After several long moments of silence he said abruptly, “He doesn’t know anything.”
I lit another cigarette and waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, I requested that he should.
“You can’t get much more specific than ‘nothing,'” he retorted, though I felt that, for once, he wasn’t really angry at me. He sighed slightly and went on. “He doesn’t know that the dead guy — Irutou’s his name, right? — had any enemies in particular. Apparently the guy was always going on about some big shot he used to work for named Tomizawa, but it wasn’t the kind of thing Katsu prints. But Katsu loves gossip whether he prints it or not, so it’s no wonder they were drinking together. Everything was normal, and then the next thing he knew somebody was knocking him into a wall.”
“What did he see?”
“Almost nothing, I guess… shadows… he said the lamp had gone out. Though apparently whoever attacked him moved really fast and was pretty normal-sized.” Sanosuke shrugged. “He doesn’t remember it very clearly, but it sounds like even if he did he probably didn’t see anything helpful.”
“So it seems,” I murmured thoughtfully.
“And that’s all he said.” This statement had a fatalistic edge to it, as if Sagara’s friend had died after saying all of this.
“How is Tsukioka doing now?”
Sanosuke made a noise like a snort or a grunt, bitter and angry, and said nothing; so I turned my thoughts to the minimal information he’d provided.
Though I did appreciate the artist’s remembering it, the name Tomizawa was not likely to be terribly useful. For though Tomizawa — whoever he was — might not be aware that the victim’s information on him wasn’t the sort of thing Tsukioka was interested in printing — thus providing a motive for the murder — that would not explain any of the other killings, the blood thing, or, most significantly, the fact that Tsukioka was still alive. Still, it was a name; I would have Hironaku look into it.
Sagara interrupted this brief reverie with the very stiff-sounding pronouncement, “Thanks for coming to get me.” Turning my eyes back to him, I could easily mark the further stiffness in his figure as he stared out across the yard at nothing.
“Don’t mention it,” I said.
“So this person,” he began again presently, in what I might have called a careful tone if I could have thought him capable of that. “This person who hurt my friend… he’s killed eight people, right?”
As I realized why he was asking this, I was a little surprised at my own reaction: an abrupt sinking of heart. I was certainly taking care as I replied, “That’s why I’m here.”
“Yeah, you always get to play with the psychopaths, don’t you?”
“The doctor made much the same comment.” I was still wary, not daring to hope the danger had been averted.
And it hadn’t. “So what do you know about the guy so far?”
“Nothing.” Normally I wouldn’t be so quick to admit such a complete lack of results even on a case I had only very recently taken, but I didn’t want to give him anything he might see as a clue lest he… get in my way.
“Nothing?” he echoed suspiciously. “You’ve been in town since last week and you just found a fresh corpse yesterday, and you still don’t know anything about the murderer?”
I must have been tired from staying up all night: his skepticism was slightly flattering; I wouldn’t have guessed he thought so highly of my abilities. That didn’t change the situation, however, and I threw back his earlier words: “You can’t get much more specific than ‘nothing.'”
He rose and turned to face me, staring me in the eye much as Takani had earlier. But unlike her, Sagara had no issues with arguing. “You’re lying,” he stated flatly. “You’d be way more annoyed if you really didn’t know anything. You’re lying ’cause you think it’s none of my business.”
“It is none of your business,” was my cool response. Of course he’d really only been skeptical because he didn’t want to believe I had no information. “It’s police business.”
“Bullshit,” he said emphatically. “You wouldn’t tell the families of the victims that it’s none of their business, and you said yourself I’m as close as Katsu’s got.”
“I would tell them that, if they were likely to get in my way. But I’m not lying,” I added before he could retort. “Whether you choose to believe me or not is your own business, but all I have at this point is speculation… and that won’t give you any skulls to crack.”
“Well…” It seemed I’d convinced him, for his anger had cooled. Or at least his specific annoyance at me had. “What do you speculate?”
He’d grown much stronger since our last don’t-get-involved argument, but somehow my desire for him not to get involved was also that much stronger. And while I wouldn’t hesitate to lie to him to accomplish that, there was no lie in this situation that was likely to be as effective as the truth. So I answered immediately, hoping to give the impression of compliance despite fully intending to give him more questions than answers. “Your friend’s presence would complicate even the most straightforward investigation. A political journalist doesn’t become a witness to a murder like this by coincidence.”
“Right,” Sanosuke muttered thoughtfully.
“But did they mean to leave him alive? If so, why? Does he have some information they want to see published, or is there another reason? If not, why do they want him dead? Does he know something they don’t want to get out? And why did he survive? Is the murderer simply sloppy?”
My companion’s face was now very serious and contemplative, and, given that rare circumstance, I thought I could be forgiven for staring. He didn’t seem to notice or care. “I’m surprised you’re not in there questioning him to death,” he finally remarked.
“If he does know something that’s related to this, he’s not aware of it, or he would have told you; I’m sure he trusts you enough for that. Our only option is to keep an eye on him in case the murderer really does want him dead.”
Sanosuke took the bait. “Oh, believe me, nobody’s gonna touch him again,” he vowed darkly. “And if somebody tries… well, I’ll solve the case for you.”
I gave him an assessing look, not because I was considering options but because I wanted him to think I was. This should keep him out of my way at least for a while, let him think he was helping, and (I thought) put him in no more danger than he would already have been in. I agreed with Takani’s assessment — the murderer, who was primarily after blood, hadn’t expected to find Tsukioka there and, in getting him out of the way, hadn’t cared whether he lived or died.
“Fine,” I said at last.
Sagara’s expression turned skeptical again. “What, you’re gonna let me do that?”
“I can hardly keep you from hanging around your friend, and you’ll probably be a much more competent bodyguard than anyone I could assign from the police force.”
This time he frankly gaped. “Did you just call me ‘competent?'”
“It was relative, but, yes, I believe I did.”
“Holy shit…” He had looked down, and I might have been mistaken, but I thought he was blushing slightly. I was probably mistaken.
As early as the next day, I’m forced to think about the ‘vampire’ issue again. A new body has turned up, this one in a small grocery store dumpster used for the disposal of old frying oil. Cause of death was the same, but a little more care was given this time to the subsequent disposition of the corpse, and the shape of the container and the weight of the victim make it unlikely that only one person was involved in hiding the body… These facts make my colleague somewhat wary of assuming he’s even dealing with the same murderer. But how many murderers with vampiric aspirations can there possibly be in this city? And if one or more of the crimes was imitation, which was the original? Interesting as it is, I’m grateful this isn’t my case.
Unfortunately, this discovery has been largely publicized. Last night’s news (which I, regrettably, skipped watching) talked about it, for one thing, and before I get the real details at work that day I’ve heard of it from no fewer than three of my neighbors. Whether they’re trying to comfort themselves with the reminder that they have a cop in the near vicinity, see if they can be the first to tell that cop about a murder, or just garner my approval on the plans that are evolving in the area, I don’t know.
Because plans are certainly evolving. The murder wasn’t precisely in the neighborhood, but close enough that the families in my apartment complex are thrown into a subdued panic of carpool and neighborhood watch arrangements. I know that fervor will die down after a few uneventful weeks — possibly even a few uneventful days; it always does. People strive for complacency, after all, to the point of disregarding a real threat the moment they’ve ‘done their part’ to prepare for it.
Besides instilling in my neighbors the aforementioned paranoia, this affects my life by shutting down the closest grocery store, probably for several days. Which is why Friday evening finds me walking to a convenience store just around the corner, rather than wasting the gas it would take to drive all the way to the next-closest grocery store, in search of macaroni and cheese.
Renee would certainly tease me about venturing forth on foot in the middle of a murder scare to buy what she calls fake food, but the shopping I planned to do tonight now isn’t going to happen. Of course, I would have bought macaroni and cheese at the grocery store anyway; it isn’t an inability to cook real food that makes this item a regular in my kitchen, but rather a hypersensitivity to the pointlessness of spending much time or effort making anything complicated for myself alone.
The local juvenile-delinquents-in-training that are always at the gas station pretending to be some variety of hardcore, knowing me for a cop, slink off as I approach, leaving the exterior of the store vacant and silent. Silent, that is, except for a couple of voices I can just hear conversing quietly around the corner of the building. It seems an unlikely place for a drug deal — though god (and the entire precinct) knows that well-off neighborhoods like this can produce some phenomenally naïve dealers — but since it also seems an unlikely place for any entirely innocent conversation, I stop to listen for a moment before going inside.
“–know you were back in the country until today,” a woman is remarking in a chiding tone. “You need to get a new cell phone.”
“Yeah, in case you haven’t noticed,” replies a man’s voice, “I’m not in much position for a credit check, and the prepaid ones don’t cover half the places I go.”
Startled and experiencing abruptly some of the same agitation as a few nights before, I stiffen and listen harder. It’s that vampire boy.
I have no idea when I started thinking of him that way.
“There are channels…” Having identified the young man, it isn’t difficult to recognize the other as the woman who approached me last night. Megumi.
“Fuck them,” says the young man, dark and vehement.
“My thoughts exactly,” Megumi agrees.
“Besides, they’ve figured out my connection to you across the whole damn country by now; they wouldn’t do a thing for me.”
She laughs mirthlessly and then (to judge by her tone) changes the subject. “So do you have any idea who’s vagabonding around here?”
“No clue.”
“I thought the police might be farther along than they usually get when I felt the touch on one of them, but it was just…” Here she seems to trail off in some sort of hesitation.
“Yeah,” the other puts in abruptly, harshly. “Just him.”
Silence ensues, and lasts so long I think the conversation must be over. But then the young man goes on, now in a tone that sounds so close to tortured as to be entirely absorbing, “He’s a cop again, Meg. A fucking cop.”
“I know,” she replies quietly.
“And eventually I’m not gonna ask; I’m just gonna–”
“I know,” she repeats, interrupting. “I know.” Without missing a beat she goes on in Japanese, and he answers in the same language.
This transition doesn’t make their conversation any less comprehensible, but I have no doubt that I am the ‘fucking cop’ and that they’ve stopped using English because they know I can hear them. They know I’m here. I haven’t made a sound; I haven’t stepped forward or even moved; I feel I’m barely breathing in my efforts to catch every word… yet somehow they know I’m here.
Which means there’s no reason to keep pretending I’m not.
Walking quickly around the corner, I find myself in a sort of alley between the store and the car wash, the kind of place that seems to have been built deliberately for the kind of young men with nothing better to do that my approach spooked just a few minutes ago. It couldn’t have been constructed with much else in mind, given that it’s too narrow to house anything beyond a few large trash cans and a lot of grime.
And it’s empty.
That my first thought is, Of course it’s empty; they can probably fly, isn’t even my greatest source of chagrin; rather, it’s that it takes me nearly a minute to recognize that this was my first thought and react to it with proper disdain.
Normally this kind of stupid semi-subliminal fixation with an absurd idea would somewhat irritate but mostly amuse me; that I’m more disturbed by it than anything else in this situation suggests that it has taken far more hold of my subconscious than I really want to admit. It almost makes me angry to find myself searching the rooftops of the two buildings with my eyes, to admit thus that I don’t find it totally illogical to think the speakers might have escaped in that direction.
But, really, where they’ve gone is probably the least compelling question of the evening. Questions… I need more questions, don’t I? I feel like I should be writing them down, there are getting to be so many of them.
Beyond merely wondering at the meaning of that strange conversation, I wonder that I caught it at all. Either they deliberately allowed me to hear, or they didn’t notice at first that I was there. And since what I heard meant almost nothing to me, I have to assume the latter… and therefore that this place is a customary haunt for the young man. A block from my home.
So it appears that it isn’t his intention merely to give me an ultimatum and come back when the time is up; he’ll be watching me through this week of his. Why? Does he expect some specific reaction from me? Or is he just curious how I’ll behave under these strange circumstances? Perhaps I’ve become the subject of an undeclared, unethical psychological experiment, and there will be a reward once it’s all over if I get through with sanity intact.
Why does it bother him so much that I’m a cop, though, and what did he mean by ‘again?’ There was something in his tone as he made that remark that was completely riveting. Despite Megumi’s comment about the police being ‘farther along than they usually get,’ which logic suggests should be the most interesting part of the exchange, my mind keeps returning inexorably to the pain in the young man’s voice as he seemed to deplore my being a cop. ‘Again.’ It was the manner of one struck unexpectedly with a tragic memory, and I simply can’t think what it might mean.
If he really were a vampire… But I cut that thought off before it can bloom into absurdity. It wouldn’t provide an explanation anyway.
How long I stand in that little alley I’m not sure, but it must be quite a while; when I leave it I find that the loiterers have returned. And the irritation on my face must be rather severe, for at my appearance they scatter even faster than before.
It’s reassuring, at least, how easily I can transition from thinking about vampires to shopping for macaroni and cheese, as I’m fairly certain that means my subconscious really isn’t as convinced as some of my thoughts seemed to indicate it is; surely I would not be able so smoothly to return to the mundane of the familiar world if I truly believed I was being stalked by vampires.
I am being stalked, though, and what I should do about it (if anything) I don’t know. The woman assured me that they have no ‘criminal intentions’ toward me, but do I believe that?
“He’s a cop again, Meg. A fucking cop.”
Perhaps the young man has done this before to others — whatever it is that he’s doing — and I’m not the first policeman in his lineup. The anguish in his tone, though, which would seem to indicate that he finds it an unpleasant, even painful task to carry out makes that theory incompatible with ‘no criminal intentions.’ Other than this, I have no theories.
And why should I continue to theorize, when the issue is so obviously beyond my comprehension at this point? Personally, there’s nothing I can do about this: they are clearly capable of evading me with apparent ease; legally, I still don’t really have a basis for action, and in any event just the thought of the phone call to the precinct to report the supposed crime makes me almost shudder with chagrin; mentally, persisting in my speculations will get me worse than nowhere: if I keep up at the rate I’m going, I might well have some sort of breakdown before the week is over.
Presumably the latter will bring the answers I need. It had better, I find myself thinking grimly as I head back home with my pseudo-groceries. And despite the resolution I’m forming about this entire affair, I still have to force myself not to look behind me at every other step to see if I’m being followed. Not that I would probably see them anyway, even if they happen to be there.
When I originally started writing this story approximately forever ago, what are now odd- and even-numbered parts formed the halves of chapters. Eventually I decided I liked it better this way, since previously there was some implied connection between the specific events in the halves of each chapter, and I didn’t like giving that impression.
The idea to have the modern parts in present tense was also a later decision. I think it’s an interesting way to differentiate the timelines and the narrating voices.
Plastic
“A curse affects both the victim and the caster. A skilled curse-caster can bend this effect so that their share in the curse is something they don’t mind, something that doesn’t inhibit them… but even if they manage that, repeatedly having a share in any curse leaves a mark eventually.”
“I’ve had enough of this.”
“Enough of what?”
“Don’t play ignorant; you know what. You knew she and I were to go driving today; you deliberately kept her out all afternoon so she would miss the appointment.”
“So?”
“So?! So, you are sabotaging my relationship with her!”
“And if I am? All’s fair in love and war, my friend.”
“You don’t love her. You don’t care about her at all. You’re just trying to make sure I don’t win her. You’re being petty and shallow and… and fake. It’s as if you were made of plastic.”
“Oh, plastic, that is appropriate. No surprise you should mention that, since that’s all you care about. You never behaved like this when we were both poor, but ever since that promotion at the factory, you think you can just buy everything you want — a big flat, a motorcar, even a nice woman. You don’t care about her either! She’s simply another object to you.”
“Good lord, Duo, is this really about money? How can you deny being petty while you’re saying such things?”
“No, this isn’t about money… not entirely. But ever since you’ve had money, you’ve become more and more disconnected with the human world and human emotions. You don’t care about people anymore — not her, not me, not anyone. You don’t care about anything beyond your damned work!”
“You’d probably better watch what you’re accusing me of. You may not want to find out just how much I care.”
Art byLink Worshiper
Heero’s glance into the gutter to make sure nothing was going to splash up at him as he stepped over it turned into a double-take and a pause. Something unexpectedly flesh-colored had seized his attention, and as he looked down more pointedly he stopped walking entirely. Then he bent and picked up the object that had caught his interest.
It was a doll — one of those Barbie men, whatever they were called, that dated Barbie or whatever they did — though Heero hadn’t thought they made them anatomically correct these days, nor the males with such long hair. Lying on the ground hadn’t done its state of cleanliness much good, and it had no clothes, but seemed otherwise undamaged. What a strange thing to find in the gutter.
He weighed the doll in his hand, looking around for a child that might perhaps have dropped it. The plastic had a somewhat brittle feeling to it, and the little figure was heavier than he would have thought it should be. Looking back down, he reflected that he was (understandably) out of touch with the world of dolls; he hadn’t thought they made the faces this nicely detailed, either. Really, for a toy, it was rather attractive. It seemed old, somehow, too, for all it was in such good shape. Why and how such a thing should be here he couldn’t guess, but surely this was someone’s collector’s item abandoned by accident.
Despite feeling a little foolish, Heero couldn’t bring himself to set it down once he’d reached this conclusion. If he put it back, it would just get ruined, and it was already so forlorn… Besides, it was undoubtedly worth something to someone, even if that was just someone on ebay; he might as well try to locate its owner. Or sell it. He could let the businesses in the immediate area know he’d found it, in case someone came asking, and if that didn’t lead anywhere he could check online to see how much it might be worth.
He didn’t want to put a dirty, wet doll in his briefcase, but neither did he much want to be seen carrying it — he wasn’t sure how his co-workers would react to the sight, but he was certain it would be annoying. So he held it down against his leg as he hurried on into the parking lot, trying to hide it as best he could with one hand and feeling its long, matted hair brushing him as he walked.
Mentally reviewing the contents of his refrigerator and kitchen cupboards and trying to decide whether or not to stop at the grocery store on the way home, he largely forgot about the doll as he drove. But once he removed his briefcase from on top of it on reaching his apartment (having decided to skip shopping today), there it was staring up at him with wide eyes and a vague smile. Sardonically he shook his head and carried it inside.
The kitchen sink under running water seemed a good place for it to wait while Heero put his work things away and changed clothing, and once he came back into the kitchen he poured some dish soap over it with a lavish hand. It looked better already. After double-checking that his mental fridge inventory was correct, he returned his full attention to the doll again. Keeping it under the tap, he worked the soap off of the plastic and out of the tangled hair, then turned the water off and held it out for inspection.
No, it didn’t look bad at all. The face was remarkably nice, actually, for something that small, and the hair was soft and didn’t feel much like plastic. Hadn’t they made dolls’ hair out of real human hair in some previous decade? This hair felt real, which was a little disconcerting but probably increased the value of the piece. The plastic genitalia was strange too; Heero wondered if this might not have been designed as some kind of gag gift. After a moment of thought, he pulled a paper towel from the roll behind the sink, folded it in half, and wrapped it around the doll’s waist, tucking the upper fold beneath the lower so it would stay. Studying the effect, he wondered if this was what little girls felt like when they dressed their dolls.
Again he shook his head. “So what am I going to do with you?” he murmured.
“You could start by combing my hair.”
Heero dropped — or, rather, threw the doll into the sink, jumping back with a startled noise. That thing had just… that thing had really just…
Art byLink Worshiper
“Just a suggestion,” said the doll’s small voice, echoing slightly against the metal of the sink.
After his initial surprise, Heero didn’t quite know what to think. He moved forward and stared down at the doll, which now lay on its face partially hidden by this morning’s cereal bowl; the paper towel skirt had come askew, so a pair of plastic buttocks, half-hidden by clinging wet hair, was all Heero could actually see. Even as he looked, though, it commented further, “I hope you didn’t faint. I hate it when they faint.”
“I’m sure the audience likes it, though,” Heero murmured as he reached into the sink somewhat tentatively and drew the doll out again. This time he pulled the paper towel off completely and began a minute examination of the plastic body. He was looking for the camera.
“You know,” said the doll calmly as Heero turned it over and over, “this is just one of the horrible effects of reality TV. A talking doll never gets believed anymore; it’s always, ‘All right, where’s the audience?'”
“Yes, that is one of the biggest horrible effects of reality TV,” Heero replied dryly. “It happens all the time.” No feature on the doll’s body seemed to resemble camera, speaker, or microphone, but surely the unusual heaviness of the thing was explained by their presence somewhere.
The doll laughed. “OK, mostly I just hate reality TV,” it admitted. “And it does make it difficult to get anyone to believe that the doll in their hand is really talking to them on its own.”
By this point Heero had turned it to face him once again, and could swear that the little lips were actually moving — stiffly, as one might expect one’s lips to move if one were made of plastic, but moving nonetheless. “Who would ever believe that?” he wondered. He thought the camera was probably focused through the eyes, since that made a certain sort of sense, and was peering closely at them trying to find any sign of it. They were nicely-painted eyes, well-detailed and an attractive shade of indigo, and, as far as he could tell, not cameras. They didn’t even appear to be transparent.
“Children sometimes do,” the doll said in a tone that implied he would have been shrugging had his shoulders contained the necessary muscles. Or… any muscles. His voice, though fairly quiet, didn’t sound either recorded or transmitted; communication technology really had come a long way.
“I’m not a child,” Heero said flatly. Perhaps if he removed one of the limbs…
“No, you’re a big, strong, handsome man who’s going to be nice to little helpless me,” the doll cajoled absurdly. Then it went on in a more practical tone, “Also you’re… wasting your time trying to pull my leg off. I don’t come apart.”
Ceasing his attempt to dismember the doll, Heero just stared at it with a raised brow. “Are you flirting with me?”
“Of course.” Its lips were definitely moving.
“If this is one of those Punk’d-style shows, I have to say I don’t think much of this premise.”
“I dunno; I think it might work pretty well.” Here was that ‘shrug’ tone again. “Too bad it’s not a show; I think being a TV star would make being a doll suck less. I could get one of those luxury Barbie houses and a little convertible and everything.”
“Well, it’s time for this doll to go back to the gutter he came from. I was going to try to find your owner, or maybe sell you on ebay, but I think you’ll do OK on your own.”
“Thanks for the bath, at least,” the doll sighed. Pensively, softly, it added, “I wonder how much I’d go for on ebay these days…”
In response to Heero’s somewhat distracted look as he answered his door, Quatre remarked, “I just talked to you a few hours ago. You didn’t already forget I was coming over, did you?”
“No, I didn’t,” replied Heero almost absently, stepping back to allow Quatre into the entry and closing the door behind him.
“Well, what’s wrong?” Quatre persisted.
Heero frowned. “I guess I’ll show you.”
He gestured to the kitchen, which was set apart from the rest of the living/dining room only in that it had linoleum rather than carpet, and which lay immediately to the left of the entry. Quatre set down his shopping bag and backpack and immediately reached for the strange object on the counter. Heero stood aside in silence; evidently this was exactly what he’d planned on showing.
Art byLink Worshiper
As Quatre examined the doll quizzically, Heero gave one of his usual unhelpful explanations. “I found it in the gutter outside work.” After an almost expectant pause, he went on slowly,”I thought I might try to find its owner.” Again he paused, as if waiting for Quatre to interrupt, then finally said, “Or see if it’s valuable enough to sell it online or something.”
At last the apparently hoped-for interjection came, though not from Quatre: “I think it’s pretty obvious,” said the doll, “that I’m a ‘he,’ not an ‘it.'”
Quatre dropped the doll and stepped back, startled and staring. Its lips had moved.
“Yeah,” said Heero darkly. Slowly the doll, which had landed face-down on the counter, moved its unbending plastic arms and righted itself stiffly, ending up in a sitting position with its legs straight out, facing them. At Quatre’s side Heero shifted uncomfortably and muttered, “Well, I haven’t seen it do that.”
“He,” the doll insisted. “Surely you noticed the giant plastic penis.”
“‘Giant?'” wondered Heero with a raised brow.
At the same moment Quatre speculated, “Is this some kind of reality TV stunt?”
The doll sighed.
“He–” Heero emphasized the pronoun– “claims it’s not. I can’t find any cameras or microphones or anything.”
“But they have to be there somewhere.” Quatre took up the doll again, straightening its legs out and examining it once more, this time with the aim of detecting hidden electronic devices. The plastic penis was rather large, proportionally speaking; obviously this was some kind of joke. Quatre smoothed the long brown hair away from the doll’s face and looked closely at the latter. “Why is he wet?”
It was the doll rather than Heero that answered. “He gave me a bath. He rubbed me all over. It was niiice.”
Assuming the licentious tone was part of the joke, Quatre simply shook his head and kept looking for the camera. Heero, however, seemed prompted to reply. “Yes, I’m sure all those plastic nerves of yours enjoyed it.”
The doll laughed regretfully. “You caught me. I can’t feel a damn thing. I’m aware that he’s turning me over and over — you’re looking for cameras, aren’t you? — but I can’t really feel it. Someday maybe I’ll get used to that.”
So forlorn was the complaint that Quatre had to laugh. “You’re pretty convincing!”
Plastic lips stretched past what Quatre would have thought their limit must be into what might be called a grin. “Thanks. It’s a side effect of being real.”
“Real what?” Heero wondered.
“I’m not inclined to tell,” the doll replied a little haughtily. “You’re just going to throw me back into the gutter.”
“I’m not going to throw you back into the gutter.” At Heero’s impatient tone Quatre had to restrain a laugh; sometimes the most unexpected things could get Heero involved and worked up.
“No,” Quatre agreed pleasantly. “If technology really has come far enough for dolls to have conversations with people, you’ve got to be pretty valuable. And if you’re just a transmitter for somebody who’s secretly taping us, then somebody‘s in violation of certain privacy laws.”
“Oh, nicely done,” the doll commended him. Heero’s sharp nod seemed to indicate he felt much the same.
“Anyway,” Quatre went on lightly, “the game’s going to start…” He looked down at the doll. “I don’t suppose you’re a college basketball fan?”
“For you, I could be,” said the doll with a wink — an actual wink, though the examination of him that Quatre had conducted thus far wouldn’t have led him to guess he had mobile eyelids.
Quatre shook his head skeptically. “Heero,” he wondered, glancing up at his friend, “what have you gotten us into?”
“I’ve watched a lot of TV in my time,” the doll was saying as Heero propped him up against the lamp on the end table beside the sofa in front of the television, “– and by that I mean more TV than anyone should ever watch in a single lifetime — but not much basketball.” The propping took longer than Heero had expected, since the paper towel skirt, which he’d replaced, didn’t want to behave.
“What kind of TV do you prefer?” Apparently Quatre had decided to play along.
Heero, who hadn’t decided anything yet, rolled his eyes.
“I like sci-fi,” the doll stated. “I used to watch that channel all day at my last house. The girl would leave me where I could see the TV, and the remote next to me where I could reach it, when she went to school; I just had to make sure to turn the TV off if her mom came into the room!”
“‘The girl?'” Quatre echoed curiously.
“Yeah, my last kid; the last person who was taking care of me.” With a disconcerting swiveling motion, the doll shook his head. “She liked to dress me up, and she liked to alter the clothes she had for me. She’d put sequins on them and stripes with markers and stuff like that — creative little kid. The problem was that she’d take off my clothing to do something to it, and then forget to put it back on me, so I’d be laying around naked.
“She was a little too young to appreciate my fine physique… she just forgot. But her mom hated finding me around naked all the time. I didn’t talk to the mom, because she was touchy and would have freaked out, so she didn’t know why I’m so detailed in certain areas, and she didn’t like it. She told the kid that if she found me somewhere naked one more time, she was taking me to Goodwill. Well, guess what happened.”
Quatre was standing beside the table now, looking down at the doll in silent fascination. Heero found that he too was staring, inordinately interested in the narrative.
The doll wrapped up his story with, “So I have no idea what’s been happening on Dr. Who lately, and it’s driving me crazy.”
“Very convincing,” Quatre murmured, shaking his head. “Somebody’s done a really good job on this.”
Heero nodded. “How did you supposedly get from Goodwill to the gutter?” he asked the doll as Quatre turned on the TV and settled onto the couch beside him.
“Oh… well…” The doll seemed a little annoyed, though whether at Heero’s choice of words or what he was about to relate Heero wasn’t sure. “I always try talking to the person who gets ahold of me, but it doesn’t always work very well. They all think I’m a reality TV thing or some kind of walkie-talkie, like you guys do. I usually change hands a bunch of times before I end up anywhere I can stay for a while. Some woman buys me and then throws me out for the usual reasons… some kid she’s babysitting picks me out of the garbage, tries to hide me from her mom on the way home, and drops me… some dog chews on me and carries me around… dogs love to chew on me… sometimes it goes on for days and days.”
“How long do you usually stay somewhere?” Having found the channel, Quatre was now digging through his shopping bag and pulling out cheese dip and chips.
“It varies,” said the doll in his ‘shrug’ tone. “Days, months, years… depends on how long it takes people to decide I’m an unhealthy figment of their imaginations and get rid of me.”
The sincerity in Quatre’s tone as he replied, “Oh, I see,” struck Heero as rather worrisome. Quatre wasn’t necessarily gullible, but he was kind-hearted almost to a fault, and it might be problematic if he started believing this weirdness, even just a little, simply because it seemed so pathetic.
“All right, enough about the doll,” Heero commanded stonily.
“Duo,” said the doll.
“What?”
“That’s my name. Duo Maxwell.”
“Not Ken?” wondered Heero dryly, having eventually remembered the name of Barbie’s boyfriend.
“Ken’s got nothing on me,” the doll — Duo — grinned. “Did you ever see a well-hung Ken doll?”
“Well, I’m sorry we’re not watching Dr. Who,” Quatre broke in, addressing Duo, “but maybe you’ll enjoy the basketball game.” It was a pointed reminder that the latter was starting.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” the doll replied, waving one arm stiffly up and down. “Just explain the rules and I’ll be fine.”
Paying full attention to basketball with a talking doll on the end table was something of a challenge. Duo — or, more accurately, whoever was controlling the doll — was a quick learner: it only took a couple of commercial break lectures on the rules and a few comments about events during the game to get him just as involved as they were, and he readily joined in cheering on the team they were supporting… but that was only natural for someone trying to win their trust in order to further the practical joke or whatever this was.
“That was great!” he was saying enthusiastically once it was over. “It’s too bad I’ve never watched basketball before! There was one guy I watched a lot of football with a couple of years ago, but he wasn’t a basketball fan.”
“Did he throw you away too?” Quatre wondered.
“He Goodwilled me,” replied Duo a little bitterly. “You know I fucking hate Goodwill? Yeah, his girlfriend thought it was weird how he kept an anatomically-correct man doll around, and he didn’t want to tell her that I talked because he was afraid she’d think he was crazy. I could have just talked to her, but he thought it wasn’t a good idea, so he just got rid of me.”
“It makes sense, I’m afraid,” Quatre said apologetically.
Heero nodded.
“Well…” Duo swiveled his plastic head toward them, his tone thoughtful. “I know you two still don’t believe me, but–”
“Believe what, exactly?” Heero broke in. “Are you inclined to tell yet?”
“That I have no cameras or microphones in me… nobody’s talking through me or recording you… and I’m not a piece of advanced technology designed to have conversations with bored little girls while they dress me up.”
“All right,” said the skeptical Heero. “Then what supposedly are you?”
Seriously Duo replied, “I’m a human. Or I was. These days I’m just a creepy doll. But I’m supposed to be human. See, I’m under a curse.”
Quatre tried his hardest, his very hardest, but he simply couldn’t help himself; he burst out laughing. “You’re what?”
The doll just shook his head.
“Everything sounded really good up until that part.” With an effort, Quatre got control of himself again. “Seriously, I’d change it; say you’re alien technology stranded on Earth or something. That would fit better with you liking sci-fi shows anyway.”
“The shows I like have nothing to do with the fact that I’m a doll,” Duo protested. “Besides, you wouldn’t believe the alien technology thing either, so why not just tell the truth?”
Heero was actually smirking a bit at this conversation. “We might come closer to believing that, though.”
“Why is science fiction always so much more plausible to people than fantasy?” complained Duo. “Why are robots who can have intelligent conversations more believable than curses?”
“Because we’ve made progress toward–” Heero began.
Quatre put a hand on his shoulder. “Debating the psychological impact of technological advancement is pointless right now.”
So Heero asked a question instead. “How did you get…” The rueful half-smile he’d adopted in response to Quatre’s admonition changed to another skeptical look. “…cursed?”
“I’m not even really sure,” Duo replied. “My friend and I’d been playing around with magic for a while, but neither of us was very good at it. We had an argument, and I heard him starting a spell… some kind of spell, but he was talking real quietly… but I didn’t think he would do something like this to me. Hell, I didn’t think he could do something like this! We never had this kind of power…”
“Well, that’s convenient,” Quatre said a little sarcastically, and began counting off points on his fingers. “Somebody else cast the spell, so you don’t know exactly what he did… It’s something stronger than you thought you guys were capable of, so not something you can reverse on your own… I bet you’re going to claim you can’t do spells as a doll anyway… and you’ve probably lost track of your friend… am I right?”
Duo tilted his plastic chin up in a motion that made his entire head swivel backwards. “No, I can’t cast spells as a doll,” he said a bit snappishly. “And my friend is long dead, since he was born in 1898.”
Heero snorted. “This keeps getting better.”
The doll seemed to take a deep breath, which was faintly audible but in no way visible, and to put some effort into downplaying his irritation. “You don’t have to believe me,” he said, with admirable calm. “Just don’t take me to Goodwill.”
With a thoughtful sidelong smile at his friend, Quatre remarked to Heero, “I think we know how to keep him in line now, don’t you? Just threaten to Goodwill him, and he’ll probably do anything we ask.”
“What on earth would we ask him to do?” Heero was giving Quatre a dark look, almost accusing, and Quatre realized immediately what the problem was.
“Heero, I don’t believe him,” he said sternly.
Heero’s expression seemed to ask, “Are you sure?” and Quatre’s in return was almost a glare. Heero really was getting worked up about this.
“Well, my flight leaves at 7:50,” Quatre said next, turning away and changing the subject; “I’m going to go take a shower.” He was a little surprised at his own tone of voice — it seemed to insert an “I give up” into his statement somewhere. There really was little more of use, he felt, to be gotten out of the doll (though probably a good deal more of interest), and Heero was evidently in a strange state of mind.
It was reluctantly, however, that he rose from the couch and made his way toward the hall. Only the awareness that he didn’t want to be either dirty or tired at tomorrow’s meeting induced him to abandon such a fascinating scene in progress. He did turn again at the entry to the hallway, though, and look back to where Heero was still pensively staring down at Duo. “Good luck with him…”
“So I’m a little confused,” Duo was saying after Quatre had gone. “Is he or is he not your roommate? He knocked on the door earlier and you had to let him in, but now he’s taking a shower here?”
“He’s not.” Heero wondered why the doll cared. “I mean he’s not my roommate,” he clarified. “But he lives out east past the edge of town, and we’re closer to the airport here; he usually stays the night when he has a flight the next day.”
“Ohhhhhh,” said Duo in an exaggerated tone of understanding. “Where is he flying to?”
Heero’s cool answer was, “None of your business.”
“Fine, fine,” Duo said breezily. “Where are you going?” For Heero had stood.
“None of your business,” Heero repeated, moving toward the hall as Quatre had. Also as Quatre had, he paused in the doorway and glanced back. He couldn’t help thinking that, whatever kind of hoax this was, Duo did look rather lonely and pathetic sitting there on the end table, stiff and unmoving in his paper towel skirt. Heero watched him for a moment, a frown growing on his face as much in response to his strange feelings at the sight as to the sight itself. Then, returning to the couch, he found the remote and turned on the TV again, this time to Syfy.
“Oh!” came Duo’s surprised voice from his left. “Thanks!”
Heero, feeling a little stupid, did not reply.
Resultant upon a greater demand and therefore a higher price for one-bedroom apartments in the complex just when he’d been looking, Heero lived in a two-bedroom. The second room did hold a bed, and did come in useful when Quatre spent the night here, but its primary purpose was to house Heero’s computer desk and bookshelf. So while Quatre was in the shower and the doll was watching television, Heero got on the internet.
Typing ‘talking doll’ into Google made him feel even stupider than leaving the TV on said talking doll’s favorite channel as if he really thought a piece of plastic (and presumably electronics) was capable of a preference. The search results were far from pretty, and even farther from useful. The things little girls would play with…
The things grown men would play with…
He turned ‘safe search’ on and tried again.
The creepiness of the results didn’t really diminish with the sex toys removed from the lineup, nor did he find anything useful in the fifteen pages he had the patience to glance over. Neither did adding terms like ‘hoax’ or ‘reality TV’ or any clever combination of quotation marks call up anything that seemed at all similar to this situation, let alone related. ‘”Duo Maxwell” “cursed doll”‘ gave him no results at all. Not that he’d expected any; they (whoever they were) undoubtedly had the doll give a different name to each person it attempted to trick, for this very reason.
Frustrated and judging by the cessation of the bathroom fan that Quatre would soon want the room, Heero shut down the computer.
Duo was watching something involving a psychic couple and an albino trying to stop a clan war among people with weird hair, but how much he was enjoying it was anybody’s guess. The design of his face seemed well-suited for emotional display, Heero thought, and it was unfortunate — and a little uncanny — to see it so stiff and dispassionate.
Then he shook his own head vigorously. He shouldn’t have been so quick to judge Quatre earlier, when here he was thinking things like this. Duo was not a person, for god’s sake. He was either an expensive toy or a conduit for some prankster’s misplaced sense of entertainment.
“Something wrong?” Duo wondered, his head swiveled a good forty degrees past disconcerting to glance at Heero.
Instead of answering the question, Heero requested the identity of the rather stupid-looking show Duo was watching. This proved not to be the best idea, as it led to a conversation about the series and the broader topic of science fiction and its typical follies. And with a piece of plastic he’d found in a gutter and was already having a difficult time dismissing as the joke part of him was still certain it must be, Heero really had no desire to be enjoying any discussion quite this much.
Sano enlists the help of exorcist Hajime in discovering the nature of the unusual angry shade that's haunting him.
Best friends Heero and Quatre have their work cut out for them assisting longtime curse victims Duo and Trowa.
During Plastic (part 80), Cairo thinks about thinking and other recent changes in his life.
A look at how Hajime and Sano are doing.
A look at how Trowa and Quatre are doing.
A look at how Heero and Duo are doing.
A meeting between Kamatari and Wufei.
Couple analysis among Heero, Duo, Trowa, and Quatre.
Quatre undergoes an unpleasant magical change; Heero, Duo, and Trowa are forced to face unpleasant truths; and Hajime and Sano may get involved.
During La Confrérie de la Lune Révéré (parts 33-35), Sano's 178-day wait is over as what Hajime has been fearing comes to pass.
During Guest Room Soap Opera (part 3), Cathy learns a lot of interesting facts and Trowa is not happy.
A few days before the epilogue of La Confrérie de la Lune Révéré, Duo and Sano get together to watch football and discuss relationships and magical experiences; Heero listens in on multiple levels.
Here is a picture I drew of dolly Duo:
I actually didn’t draw this until a much later point, but I moved it to this part to be concurrent with Duo’s first appearance in the story. I’m very pleased with this piece, all except the hair. It’s supposed to look like real human hair, but I think it actually looks more fakey than anything else in the picture. The shadows aren’t entirely correct either, but I couldn’t figure out how to make them look more realistic; I suck at lighting. Ah, well. I didn’t draw the background; it’s a photo of my kitchen counter that I blurred up a bit and put Duo on top of.
Here’s a picture of Quatre I drew:
Like the previous picture of Duo, I didn’t draw this until long after this part was posted, but I put him here since this is Quatre’s first appearance in the story.
His facial expression didn’t turn out at all like I planned, and actually strikes me as rather hilarious.
I never had Barbies growing up, because my mother disapproved of them. This was partly because she didn’t like the image they presented to impressionable young minds (in which I really can’t disagree with her), and partly because she just knew they’d end up lying around naked, and she hated that thought…. and, to be honest, I can’t really disagree with her there either. Oh, Barbies…
In reality, you can go fifteen pages into a Google search for “talking doll” and not find any sex toys; there is a lot of creepy Christian stuff, though. And ‘”Duo Maxwell” “cursed doll”‘ does actually turn up several results — mostly from cosplay.com — though the two terms usually only happen to be on the same page, and not actually related. This may change if the search engines catch up to these chapter posts, though :D
Sano wasn’t sure which aspect of his hangover woke him, just as he wasn’t sure which was the worst, or which the most familiar; it would have been like trying to describe the wetness of water. Very disgusting water that left him still thirsty.
Every new hangover — at least lately — felt like the worst he’d ever had. Today’s surpassed even that ever-growing record by seeming like the worst experience he could possibly have in waking up. But that was only until he managed, with some difficulty, to drag his lids open and force his eyeballs to focus — and saw the woman lying in the bed beside him.
“Oh, god,” he groaned, burying his face in the blanket again immediately. It was one thing to get so drunk he couldn’t remember what he’d done the night before; it was another entirely to wake up in bed with what he didn’t remember. Not that this was by any means the first time it had happened to him lately. Usually, though, it was merely signs that someone else had been there, not the someone herself. And none of the reasons they ever stuck around until Sano awakened were good.
“If you’re hoping for breakfast,” he mumbled at last into the linen, “you’re out of luck.”
“That’s just what you said last week,” she replied complacently.
Sano was so relieved she hadn’t said something like, “You promised to pay in the morning,” it took him a moment to comprehend what she had said.
“Last week?” Was he supposed to know this girl?
“You don’t remember? Guess I’m not surprised. This is the second time for us.”
Sano sighed and raised his face slightly so his voice wasn’t quite as muffled as before. “At least one of us must be a pretty good lay.”
He could hear the grin in her reply, “I’ll take that as a compliment, thanks, but since we haven’t actually fucked…”
Already grimacing, Sano could not express his confusion with a frown, but he did turn his eyes toward her with a little more attention.
She was fairly pretty, a couple of years his senior, and already had that world-weary shadow in her expression that he knew would eventually turn to dull blankness as she went about her seductive trade entirely by rote. For now, though, she evidently had energy and enthusiasm enough. She looked back at him from where she sat in the tangle of blankets at his side, eyes sparkling with curiosity. That she wore underclothes seemed to bear out her latest remark, and Sano struggled futilely to remember what they had done last night.
“You’re everyone’s favorite client, you know,” she went on, “just ’cause of that. Getting paid for a night of almost no work…”
“‘Everyone’s?'” Sano sat up now, noting he was fully clothed, and that his hangover was every bit as bad as it had seemed at first.
The woman raised a brow at him. “Every one of us you’ve hired recently, yeah. We’ve started rolling dice to decide who gets to go with you whenever you show up.” She laughed a pleasant, musical laugh.
Considering the method by which Sano raised the funds necessary to pay for this entertainment, there was something ironic in the idea of the entertainment rolling dice over him. Dismissing this, however, along with the depressing thought of how much money he must have spent on absolutely nothing lately, he listened to her next comment.
“We’ve got some bets going on you, too. We thought, since we were already gambling…”
Again he merely echoed her word, “‘Bets?'” and wasn’t really surprised at how blank his voice sounded.
She propped her elbow on her knee and leaned forward to rest her chin in her hand, fixing him with an intense gaze. “Well, some of us think she must be European… an exotic foreigner, you know? Some, including me, are sure she must be an older woman… there’s even one gal with her money on it being a warrior of some sort.” Again she laughed, and her eyes sparkled. “We’re all sure she must be a real looker, so there’s no money in that.”
Sano had believed his somewhat bewildered state was due to his hangover, but was beginning to retreat from this point of view. “Who the hell are you talking about?”
Her expression softened slightly as she replied, “The woman who broke your heart.”
Sano blinked. “What?”
The musical laugh was a little gentler this time. “For weeks now you’ve been coming over stone drunk and paying for us and then never actually fucking any of us, like you just want somebody to sleep next to. If that ain’t the behavior of a heartbroken man…”
“Oh.” Sano wasn’t sure whether to laugh or sigh. He supposed once a group of complete strangers started telling him he was clearly heartbroken, it was about time to admit it to himself. Especially given how ineffectual it was proving getting drunk enough not to remember the nights and making sure he had a distraction for the mornings.
Eventually he did laugh, albeit somewhat bitterly. “None of you are gonna be able to collect on your bets,” he told her; “sorry. Well, except whoever guessed a warrior. Maybe. If you guys decide it still counts.”
Now it was the prostitute’s turn to appear bemused.
Like his laugh, Sano’s grin was rather bitter. “No woman broke my heart,” he said, the bluntness of his tone belying the ambivalence of his words.
She had him figured out, though — either that or she thought she was teasing him with the suggestion, “A man, then?”
Sano nodded.
Again she laughed. “And if I thought the news of a beautiful woman was going to stir the girls up…”
“I’m glad you think it’s funny,” Sano half-snarled, tempted to rebury his face in the bedding after telling this nosy woman to go to hell.
Her next laugh, however, was actively sympathetic. “Oh, honey, I don’t think it’s funny at all! Someone as lonely as you…”
“Who says I’m lonely?” Sano responded automatically, sullenly, and entirely futilely.
“And we ain’t helpin’.”
“No, you sure as hell aren’t,” Sano agreed.
She stared at him thoughtfully for a moment, then asked in a conversational tone, “So did he die?”
“No!” Sano felt a little cold at the thought, and answered more vehemently than the question really required.
Now she was looking at him expectantly. “So if he isn’t dead…”
“You know, it’s really none of your business,” Sano replied.
She chuckled. “No, it isn’t. But we’ve all been so curious… and talking about it would be good for you.”
Examining her eager face, Sano couldn’t really bring himself to believe his wellbeing was any great part of her motives… but that didn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t right. It certainly couldn’t be any less effective than what he had been doing.
“Fine,” he sighed a little grouchily, lying back down and raising his arms to use as a pillow. Eyes closed to facilitate the ebb of his headache, he wondered where to start.
Well, hell, why not at the beginning? “We were sortof enemies at first. Well, we were on the same side, but he didn’t want me around. Thought I wasn’t good enough to be there. I wanted to prove him wrong so fucking bad… I got so used to obsessing about it and thinking about him, I don’t even have a clue when I started liking him… but at some point I did.”
“But what’s he like?” she asked impatiently. “What does he look like? What does he act like?”
Sano huffed, also somewhat impatient, but couldn’t see any reason not to provide this peripheral information. “Well, he’s thin… I mean, he’s got muscle, but he’s also got a sorta narrow body. His face is kinda harsh; he’s got these high cheekbones so there’s always these shadows…” He traced the spots on his own face. “And his eyes…” Here he trailed off, unable to give the details he’d had in mind. The pain abruptly blossoming in his chest had nothing to do with his hangover. Finally, though, he forced himself to complete the broken sentence. “His eyes are gold.”
A long silence followed. He’d been half expecting her to laugh again, and appreciated that she didn’t.
Eventually, when the silence began to weigh on him unbearably, Sano went on. “And how he acts… pretty much like an asshole most of the time.” Now she did laugh, and he didn’t mind. “He’s a good person,” he explained, “a really good person… he’s just not a very nice person.”
A more pensive silence followed, and eventually Sano murmured almost to himself, “I guess it makes sense. Obsessed with the guy and then getting to know what a good person he really is… I kinda had no choice, you know? Not fair, really…”
“If he’s an asshole, then, no, it really ain’t fair,” she agreed. It was a prodding tone, urging him to go on, and at the same time she was trying to hide her amusement.
Again Sano considered telling her to go to hell — or at least get out of his home and stop rubbing salt in his wounds — but, having disclosed this much, unless he finished the story, he had probably doomed himself to endless questioning from every prostitute he hired from now on. Which, given his track record, he wasn’t likely to stop doing, once he got drunk, no matter how much this one annoyed him.
“Yeah…” he went on at last, “so, eventually somehow when I was trying to get his attention it wasn’t because I wanted to fight him anymore. And I guess I was pretty annoying, because he gave in finally.”
“He gave in finally because you were… annoying?” Sano could hear the skeptical laughter hiding behind the careful neutrality of this statement.
“Yes.” His tone was surly. “He was always annoyed with me. Always telling me to get lost, acting like I was in his way all the time, even when he was fucking me…”
“So he was fucking you at one point.”
“Yeah, for a while. A lot, actually.” He added with a wry grin, “See, I really am a good lay.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” she chuckled. “So he must’ve liked you at least a little, then.”
Sano’s arms weren’t in the best position for a shrug, but still that was the tendency of his shoulders as he answered bitterly, “If you call acting like he never wants me around and always calling me names and saying that everything I say is stupid and basically being a jerk to me in every possible way all the fucking time signs that he likes me at least a little, then, sure, maybe he did.” At her repeated sympathetic laugh he added decisively, “No, the whole thing was just sex to him, and I should’ve never let it get more than that for me.”
After another long moment she asked, “How did it end?”
“He left,” Sano sighed. “Got transferred out to Niigata.”
“So it wasn’t even a real break-up? That’s almost worse…”
“Well, it was… I dunno. He did say I could come with him if I wanted… like that actually meant anything.”
Though he wasn’t looking at her, Sano got the feeling the woman went utterly still where she sat. “So…” she said after a tense moment. “This guy you’re in love with…” With a grunt Sano protested her word choice, but she went on. “You always wished he’d stop acting like he didn’t want you around, and he’s not the type of guy to show he cares about someone…”
“Right, right,” said Sano impatiently.
“So this guy who never acts like he likes you — and you wish he would — asks you to come with him when he gets transferred…”
“Yeah?”
“And you say no?”
“Course.”
At her sudden movement he opened his eyes, in time to see her roll onto her side and press the blanket against her face to muffle her sudden torrent of laughter. It was loud and it was musical, and it was quite clearly derisive.
“God, shut up,” he grumbled, stung. “I thought you felt sorry for me.”
“I do!” She pulled the blanket away from her face long enough to laugh out these words. “It’s just you’re such a fucking idiot!”
If he’d thought her capable of holding her own against him in a fist fight, he would have started one. Instead he merely tried to defend himself in a raised voice. “Look, I don’t know why he even said that, but it wasn’t like I was going to jump at the chance to go with someone who only wants me around to fuck whenever he feels like it. Even if I do… really like him.”
For some reason this sent her into a fresh spasm of laughter, and by now Sano was sitting up watching her mirthful writhing in annoyance. She did manage to ask, however, through her amusement, “What exactly… were you waiting for… from him?”
“What do you mean?” Sano demanded.
With a succession of deep breaths she strove to calm herself, and answered in a more level tone, “Guys who are bad at showing they care about their boyfriends and all don’t change overnight… he ain’t just gonna come out and say ‘Oh, I love you’ all of a sudden. He’s gonna show it by doing something.”
“What, you think he said I could come with him because he was in love with me or some shit?” Somewhat to his surprise, Sano actually found himself rather angry at the idea. How could she even suggest such a stupid thing?
Evidently following his mood, she sobered completely. “Why the hell else would he do it, if he’s such a jerk?”
She did have a point… but even so, the theory was utterly absurd. Not to mention… a little painful to think about, given how quickly he’d said no.
“And did you ever think to ask him why he was inviting you like that?” she pursued. “Or did you just assume that, just ’cause he doesn’t read you poetry, he only wanted you to come along as his fuck-buddy?”
“Yes!” Though this emphatic answer was almost loud enough to be a shout, it sounded more discouraged than angry. “Why the hell should I think anything else? I mean, he was never nice to me; I thought I made that pretty clear.”
“Lord save me from the like,” she murmured with a rueful grin toward heaven. Then, returning her eyes to him, she went on in a calm, placating tone. “Course I don’t know all the details, and I don’t know the guy, and, hell, I don’t really know you. I’m not gonna try to talk you into seeing it my way… but do you really think you handled it right?”
“How is asking me that not trying to talk me into seeing it your way?” Sano wondered. Then, as she only looked at him, he added, “I have no fucking clue whether I handled it right or not!”
“Well, neither do I,” she shrugged.
Sano was surprised to feel a surge of annoyed disappointment at this; had he really been expecting some wise advice or something from this complete stranger? “Why the hell did you even ask, then?”
“Well, what I do know is that you shouldn’t just end a relationship without talking about it first.”
“Wasn’t a fucking relationship,” Sano grumbled. “It was just fucking.”
“People don’t invite their fuck-buddies to come with them when they transfer,” she replied dismissively.
“Maybe nice people don’t.”
“All I’m saying is, it seems like you wasted an opportunity, and I hate that.”
“Yeah, sure, an opportunity to keep dealing with the hardest situation to deal with and the biggest jerk ever.”
“People who want real relationships do deal,” she said sternly. “I know because the rest buy whores.”
“God!” Sano protested, “you say that like I’ve got some kind of responsibility or something and I’m not doing it right.”
“That’s kinda exactly what I’m saying. Nothing pisses me off more than seeing people like you who can do things and go places I never can throwing away their chances.”
“What do you mean? What chances do I have that you don’t?”
She gave him a hard look. “You think I’ll ever have someone ask me to go with him when he gets transferred? Hell, do you think I’m ever likely to leave Tokyo… do anything besides what I’m doing now for the rest of my life… however long that turns out to be…? That’s why you people who ain’t whores really oughta make the best of your choices, ’cause not everybody has any.”
“What?” Sano stared at her. “The hell you don’t have any choices! Who says you can’t leave Tokyo? Who says you have to stay a whore?”
“My contract and a million other things.”
“A contract? Shit, that’s nothing.”
“See, it seems really easy to you… Nobody thinks about what I’d have to do to give up this life.” She raised a hand and began counting off points on her fingers. “I’d have to sneak out, move to a new town, leave all my friends and all the stuff I know… change my name, probably change the way I look… I’d have to learn a real job to support myself and actually work it… practice talking all correct, probably…” She laughed. “And you think it’s hard to deal with your boyfriend.”
“You’d think so too if you met him! Besides, I’d have to travel and go find him. And then what if I was right? What if he didn’t want to talk to me or see me or whatever? At least your thing would make your life better; I’d be maybe making things worse.”
With a slight laugh she acknowledged this to be true. “But the point is that you could.”
“So could you!” he countered. “You listed all that stuff, but all you really said was that it would be hard to leave. Maybe harder than me talking to him, sure, I’ll give you that, but you could do it.”
She tilted her chin upward and looked shrewdly down her nose at him. “Tell you what. Let’s make a deal. You go talk to him and find out how he really feels about you, and I’ll come with you and start a new life in Niigata.”
Sano gaped at her, at first unable to speak. Finally he managed, “You’re kidding.”
“No!”
“But… why…?”
Now the look she gave him was skeptically disdainful. “You think I want to stay like this forever?”
“No, but… going all the way to Niigata…” Sano scratched his head.
“‘Sas good a place as any, ain’t it?”
“Well… I guess…”
“So is it a deal?”
“I…” Sano’s mind had gone somewhat blank the moment she’d suggested he go look for Saitou, but now he had to think quickly and intensely. He couldn’t deny that he would like almost nothing in the world better than to see him again, but what would such a meeting entail? All he could think of was Saitou’s coldest tone, narrowed eyes, and most indifferent gesture as he wondered why Sano had come all this way for nothing. And yet… and yet… there was that small seed of uncertainty that had already existed, buried deep, even before this woman had started pouring water and sunshine on it. Was he sure he’d interpreted everything correctly? Was he sure he knew how Saitou felt about him? And wasn’t his uncertainty almost worse than the rejection he assumed would be the result of the proposed venture?
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a deal.”
***
Saitou turned toward the wall, pulling the crumpled blanket up to his hips. His breathing was returning to normal, the sweat cooling, and the haze receding, which meant the usual host of importunate thoughts was coming forward from the background — whence it had been hounding him all along — to hound him up close.
He’d stopped attempting to keep these thoughts away — the irritation and the puzzlement and the regret — because even if he put his hands over the spring, it welled up inexorably through his fingers. The result was that he felt defeated and ineffectual on a daily basis at his inability to control what went on in his own head, and then had to deal with the irritation and the puzzlement and the regret on top of that. And moments like this were the absolute worst.
“Hajime,” came Tokio’s soft voice from behind him.
Saitou pulled the blanket up farther and stared at the wall.
“Ha-a-ajime,” she called him again.
He ignored her as best he could. As if she hadn’t commanded plenty of his attention a few minutes ago.
She wasn’t having it, though. She crept sideways to press herself against him, and slid a delicate hand up over his arm around to his chest. “It’s funny,” she said into his ear, in that vague, airy way of hers. “You’ve always been distant when we made love, but lately you’re even worse. You’re just an empty, handsome shell. Your mind is a hundred miles away.”
Saitou had nothing to say to this; it was true enough.
“I wonder why that could be,” she went on, dragging out ‘wonder’ in a way that clearly stated, “Tell me, or else I’ll speculate. Aloud. At length.”
He wasn’t about to tell her, however. Masochistic this might be, since she didn’t threaten idly, but he didn’t care.
Once several moments had passed and it was evident he wouldn’t be admitting anything, “I suspect you’ve left your heart in Tokyo,” she said.
Saitou stifled a groan, but couldn’t quite restrain the accompanying sigh. It was a little ironic, considering what they’d just finished doing, how penetrating she was. Of course she’d managed to hit on the real answer on her first guess. And, as was often the case, she did it with an air of simultaneous absence and intensity that made it seem as if she were the one a hundred miles away and yet had never been more invested in anything in her life than she was in this — as if her interest were, in fact, being transmitted from a hundred miles away, like a discussion carried out by telegraph but without the stops and ungrammatical brevity.
“Funny thing, your heart,” she mused. “Some would say it doesn’t exist.” She chuckled her distracted-sounding laugh. “Especially that poor man who runs errands for you at the station. I know I’ve certainly never gotten at it.” She ran her fingertips up and down his arm, again as if waiting for him to add something to the thus far one-sided conversation.
Of course he didn’t. It wasn’t his responsibility to provide her with entertainment; Tokio was perfectly capable of finding alternate sources, and routinely did so when he was otherwise occupied. She would never have come bothering him if Sano had been here.
If Sano had been here…
“I wonder what it takes…” she went on eventually. “Since you are, in fact, very passionate, I believe you must love very well. Very skillfully. And I don’t just mean your skills in bed. I can get into your bed because of our legal bond, but what kind of person can get into that heart of yours?”
She always reminded him of the ‘legal bond’ at times like this, reveling (as much as someone like Tokio could ever revel in anything) in the fact that he had a sense of honor that wouldn’t allow him to deny his wife her marital dues.
“I think it must be someone a little older than you,” she speculated: “someone who’s had a chance to steady out like you have and who’s savvy and jaded like you; someone cool and calm who won’t annoy you.”
“Is there a point to this chatter?” Saitou wondered, prodded into impatient speech at last by this spectacularly inaccurate assessment.
“Well, let me know if I’m right…”
“Not even close.”
“I thought so,” she said. The complacence in her tone brought him to the irritating realization that she’d been baiting him with a false picture of what she thought his lover must be like; she knew him better than that. “You would prefer someone younger, whom you can order around, but probably not somebody who actually obeys all your orders; someone who still has something to learn, because you’d like to help; someone who enjoys life the way you can’t, but still knows what the world is really like; someone as passionate as you are, and probably just as stubborn.”
After a long silence, he had to admit with grudging admiration, “That’s about right.”
“The world’s a funny place,” she said thoughtfully and with half a sigh. “That someone like you exists somewhere, and then it turns out someone like him does too.”
She even knew it was a man. Why did he bother trying to hide anything from her?
“And yet you didn’t bring him here with you when you transferred…” Her voice was even more pensively musing than usual at this.
And that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? That there had been someone in the world for someone like him, and then, all of a sudden, there hadn’t been. Because evidently, despite all steadily growing impressions to the contrary, Saitou hadn’t been right for him.
“I offered,” he said, and didn’t bother to try hiding his bitterness; she would pick up on it anyway. “He refused. That was the end of it.”
“Perhaps he didn’t really like you.”
Resisting the urge to snarl, Saitou said tightly, “That was the conclusion I came to.” Not that Sano had said so, exactly… but he’d laughed when Saitou had offered to bring him here.
“You ‘came to that conclusion?'”
He grunted assent.
“That’s funny,” she said, and left it at that.
She let him steep for a few minutes in his frustrated disappointment, and then almost repeated her last phrase. “It’s funny…” She dragged out the word in a you really want to know what I have to say sort of way, then waited a moment in placid silence. Finally, “You have a tendency to run people’s lives,” she said. “I think I’m almost the only person you don’t expect to jump when you tell them to, and you still tried it for the first year we were married.”
Out of morbid curiosity as to what her point could possibly be, Saitou asked, “Why is that funny?”
“You didn’t insist on him coming with you, but you’re still thinking about him now.” How she could read so much from the motionless back turned toward her he could never tell; sometimes it was uncanny how much she knew without any evidence as to how she knew it. Occasionally the thought had crossed his mind that he should recruit her as a spy, but the gulf of attendant horror always swiftly drowned it.
“Funny,” she went on, “that you care so much about him, but wouldn’t insist.”
“I wasn’t about to force the idiot to do anything he didn’t want to do.”
“Of course not. So it’s lucky you have me around to take his place, isn’t it?”
The implication was clear: he might be thinking of someone else, but as long as he couldn’t physically produce that person, Tokio had free rein. No great surprise there.
He couldn’t help reflecting on this conversation the next day when she dragged him shopping. With Sano around, days off had seemed to have a purpose; he’d actually enjoyed being away from work. But here with Tokio, it was all boring errands and wondering (on good days) what was going on at the station or (on worse days) what was going on in Tokyo. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t just put in seven days a week and avoid all of this. Oh, wait, yes, he was: Tokio wouldn’t let him. If either of them had had another lover around, she would leave him alone, but as it was…
“Well?” she was wondering in her gentle tone that suggested she’d never been impatient or annoyed in her whole life.
“Go with the orange,” he replied absently. “The white doesn’t suit you.”
She smiled her thanks at the advice and turned back to the merchant.
Saitou also turned away, wanting to look anywhere but at the stall and fearing he must go insane if he had to pass judgment on one more set of options for his wife’s new kimono as if he in any way cared what she wore. And that was when he saw, some distance off coming up the crowded sidewalk in this direction… but it couldn’t be… Sano.
Outwardly, of course, Saitou remained as collected as ever — though he was glad Tokio was doing business just at that moment, as it provided a good excuse for him to be standing there still as stone — but inside he seethed with turmoil and confusion. What was Sano doing here? What would happen if they met? Why was Sano in Niigata in the first place? What could Saitou possibly say to him? What was Sano doing here? And who was that smart-looking woman walking next to him?
Sano was busy talking to the woman with that over-animation of his that simultaneously animated others — Saitou recognized it with painful precision — and evidently hadn’t noticed him yet. There didn’t have to be a confrontation. Saitou could turn and walk away right now and hope never to be tormented again by the unexpected sight of Sano with a beautiful woman on his arm. Or by the sight of Sano, period. Just a glimpse of him like this in a crowded market street did things to Saitou’s head and heart, and it would be better for all concerned if it simply didn’t happen again.
At that moment, as if on cue, Tokio appeared and took his arm, making some remark about the order she’d just placed. She couldn’t fail to note his rigidity, though, and the fixed stare he hadn’t yet managed to withdraw. “Hajime?” she wondered placidly. “What’s wrong?” She leaned slightly toward him, looking where he looked, and said, “Ohhh.” He could hear the calm smile in her next words, but the words themselves blurred as his attention strayed — for at that moment Sano noticed him.
Accident or coincidence, Saitou had thought, must be unlikely here. What business could Sano have in Niigata that didn’t involve Saitou — Sano, to whom ‘business’ generally meant ‘finding someone to buy him a drink?’ And yet the look on the boy’s ingenuous face now was so honestly shocked, it didn’t seem possible he’d been specifically looking for Saitou — because why, in that case, should he be shocked at seeing him? In any case, he and his woman formed a sort of mirror to Saitou and Tokio: standing still in the middle of the flow of sidewalk traffic, staring, each man evidently ignoring the words of his companion.
Perhaps Sano was simply here to show off this new ladyfriend of his. She was certainly pretty, and had a self-sufficient, down-to-earth air Saitou thought must appeal to the young man. And yet he didn’t believe he’d ever done anything to Sano to deserve such retribution, nor that Sano was capable of such deliberate cruelty.
“Who is that woman?” Tokio asked. Obviously she’d decided on who Sano was — actually, Saitou might well have told her without noticing, that and god knew what else, while he was distracted — and she thought the woman might be an acquaintance as well.
“I have no idea,” he said briefly.
“She’s very pretty,” Tokio remarked, then went on in a dreamy tone about the woman’s kimono, but Saitou was mostly ignoring her again. For Sano’s face had twisted and he was turning away. He didn’t seem terribly pleased at seeing Saitou, and evidently also thought they didn’t really have to talk just because they’d (almost) run into each other again. Maybe it truly was a coincidence.
Saitou found himself excessively relieved, and simultaneously overcome with fresh bitterness and disappointment. Of course it made sense that, if Sano had never cared about him and even had a new interest now, he might not be inclined to say a single word to Saitou… After all, outside of being lovers they’d practically been enemies… It made sense, but it hurt.
Now there seemed to be some sort of active discussion or even argument going on between Sano and his companion, and presently the latter broke away and turned. Moving purposefully through the others on the sidewalk, she made her way back the direction they’d previously been walking. Sano whirled, looked after her with an exclamation of some sort, then followed in what seemed to be a thick mixture of reluctance and anger.
“Oh, she’s coming over here,” Tokio observed unnecessarily.
The woman walked directly to Saitou and stopped, an intention that had been obvious from her determined expression. The latter disappeared entirely, however, behind a mask of suggestive playfulness as she looked up at him. He’d seen that practiced putting-on of coquetry before, and knew what it meant, but in this situation — at this time, in this place, and given who he assumed she was — it seemed so utterly incongruous and inexplicable that he was completely unprepared for what she said to him:
“Hello, handsome. You look so hot… how about a quick dip and something to eat?” And it wasn’t so much the words as the inflection that emphasized their secondary over their straightforward meaning.
“That sounds like fun,” Tokio smiled placidly. “Am I invited?” And the worst part was that she knew what she was saying just as well as the other woman did.
“Course you are, honey.” The woman flashed his wife a seductive smile. “Always a discount for pretty ladies on the side.”
Between the proposition out of nowhere and Tokio’s frank response, Saitou found himself at a loss for words. He probably appeared every bit as nonplussed as Sano did; the latter had caught up just in time to hear his friend’s unusual offer, and apparently was taken as much by surprise as Saitou was. Now, consciously avoiding meeting Saitou’s eyes, he took the last step forward to seize his woman by the arm and drag her away.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded as they went. They were moving rapidly out of earshot, so Saitou only caught part of the woman’s response, and even less of Sano’s subsequent statement.
“Hey, if you ain’t gonna…your half…deal…don’t…mine.”
“…think…obvious…goddamn wife…”
Saitou didn’t really want to hear more, especially once the word ‘wife’ got involved. Let them have their little private, intimate conversation there with their heads so close together and Sano still gripping her arm like that. It didn’t matter what stupid game the idiot was playing, parading his sweetheart (or whatever she was) around here like this and sending her to flirt so clumsily with Saitou. He wanted nothing to do with it.
Still, he had to admit, it had been… nice… to see Sano again. Even if nothing good could come of it, even if it exacerbated his condition… a part of him was lighter for the encounter. Another part of him, the coldest and most pragmatic part, hoped it would be their last.
As he turned to leave, he found himself facing Tokio, who had evidently anticipated him and somehow gotten right into the path she knew he would tread. She had a gift for making herself seem to take up a good deal more space than she actually did, and he stopped after only a step, scowling at her.
“It’s funny,” she said in her softest, blandest tone, “the look on your face when you saw him. Well, really, it’s more funny that you’re walking away now, when you obviously desperately want to talk to him.”
“I don’t ‘desperately’ want to do anything,” he said stonily, “and there’s no reason for me to talk to him at all.”
“I think you’re wrong,” replied Tokio calmly. And then she just stared up at him with those wide eyes whose appearance of vacancy could fool anyone into thinking there was very little going on behind them. She did not intend to move. And pushing past or circumnavigating her would take so much more than just the relatively easy physical motion involved. How had he ever ended up married to someone like this?
He turned again and looked at Sano, who was still arguing with the unknown woman some distance off. Both seemed upset. Turning yet again toward Tokio, he found her unbreakable stance unchanged. When he faced Sano again, he found him coming toward him with that same expression of angry reluctance he’d worn before. Sano didn’t meet Saitou’s gaze, only stared defiantly at the ground as he drew up to him. There he stood solidly and said nothing.
Saitou wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, nor entirely sure he wanted to be, but when he glanced over his shoulder, Tokio just smiled at him. He found Sano having a similar experience — except that, instead of smiling, Sano’s woman glowered and gestured emphatically across the street. There a neat row of trees stood that might provide a bit of privacy for any two people wanting a personal conversation away from the market crowd. Assuming there were two such people around. And perhaps this was starting to make a little more sense.
Sano’s head swung around, and his eyes met Saitou’s for the first time. Scowling, he looked away again quickly, muttered something unintelligible, and headed off across the street. The scowl wasn’t his angry one, though; it was the I can’t see this ending well expression he used for unpleasant situations he couldn’t get out of. And if he was that averse to talking to Saitou, he could damn well just… but, no, Tokio still stood there smiling benignly; Saitou had no choice either. With a sigh he crossed the street after Sano.
Behind a tree that didn’t really hide them from most people’s sight but that they could at least pretend did, they stared at each other for a long moment without a word. And finally Saitou said, “It seems I’m not the only one plagued by helpful women.”
Sano laughed sardonically. “So’s that your wife?”
“Yes.”
“She’s hot.”
Saitou snorted, and another long silence fell. Knowing Tokio wouldn’t allow him to leave for a while yet, he eventually forced himself to ask, “What are you doing here?” And he was surprised, after all the effort it took to get started with the question, how excessively easy it was to continue and finish.
“I…” Sano’s voice dropped so that his words were nearly inaudible; Saitou caught them, however: “I was looking for you.”
Saitou’s heart had been beating a little faster than usual ever since the moment he’d set eyes on Sano, and now, hearing this, it fluttered abruptly and alarmingly. “Why?”
Standing stiff and motionless, looking away, Sano took a deep breath. “I made this deal…” he began. “See that woman over… Well, ever since… I mean, I wanted to…” With each new abortive phrase he sounded less uncertain and more irritated. “I guess I can keep acting like a fucking idiot,” he murmured gruffly, “or just fucking ask you and get it over with.”
As no question was immediately forthcoming, “So you wanted to ask me something…?” Saitou prompted.
“Yeah, she was getting on my case for never… But, I mean, you could have told me sometime without me having to… one way or the other…” Abruptly Sano turned his face toward Saitou and looked him straight in the eye, his fists clenching as if for a fight. The idiot was always ready for a fight, even in the middle of a scene like this. Whatever kind of scene this was. He managed to get his question out fairly levelly, though: “What exactly do I mean to you?”
The heart that had hastened unduly now seemed ready to stop beating. After so many weeks of separation, after so emphatically denying what Saitou wanted and parting with him so cavalierly, was Sano really here — could he really be here, now, asking a question like this? Saitou found his own voice surprisingly, disturbingly subdued as he said, “You came all the way here to ask me that?”
“Yeah.” Sano’s tone was similarly soft, almost a whisper. And his answer to this question, Saitou thought, also provided an answer to another Saitou could have asked, had he been inclined to wonder. Sano added a little more strongly, “And I want the truth, Saitou.”
“When have I ever lied to you?” Saitou’s smirk struck him as very weak and somewhat out of place at the moment.
“Um, whenever you fucking felt like it?” It was the same glare as always, wonderfully hot and direct; but there was a look of desperation to it as well that demanded the truth in more forceful terms even than Sano’s words had. Not that Saitou could possibly want to play with him at the moment — not when Sano’s mere, unexpected presence had already brought more lightness into Saitou’s day, whatever had been going on with that woman notwithstanding, than anything had since the transfer. Not when he might have a chance to get back what he’d let go, to return to the happiness he’d had and lost.
“What impression have you been under all along?” he wondered quietly.
“That I was just convenient sex,” replied Sano, flat and equally quiet, looking away again as if he couldn’t bear to meet Saitou’s eyes as he said it, in case it might be true.
And suddenly everything made sense.
“No.” It came out as something of a horrified whisper. “I…” Saitou took a deep breath, and said what he realized now he should have said back then — said every day — and the lack of which had come so close to costing him everything. “I love you.”
Sano’s head snapped back around, his face going white, and it seemed he postponed inhaling for an unnaturally long span. Then, in a flash, he had flung himself at Saitou and was kissing him for all he was worth — which, Saitou was inclined to think, was a good deal more than he had ever realized.
“Well, that’s about done it,” said one woman, coming to stand by the other and join her in looking across the street.
“I believe so,” the other smiled.
“And all it took was some basic communication,” the first said, somewhat exasperated. “Dunno what men find so damn hard about that.”
“Some men think they’re safer if they defend everything like a secret,” said the second.
“I think we’ll need to keep an eye on ’em still for a while,” the first frowned. “I can totally see them turning around and doing the same thing to each other again if we don’t.”
“You may be right,” said the second woman. She looked around, and added pensively, “I’m hungry. Shall we discuss it over lunch?”
The first woman agreed gladly. Introductions ensued, and two new friends — or perhaps co-conspirators, or even business partners — walked off arm in arm.
I’ve rated this story . The idea was kicking around for literally years before I actually wrote it. I think it’s pretty sweet. Also, you know Tokio and that ex-prostitute are going to hook up now. Maybe I should write a story about them…
Panting, trying to control movements that had originally been a bit panicky, Sano slowed, then finally drew to a halt. The night air, cool as steel, instantly chilled the sweat that was no longer renewed by effort, and he shivered. Turning, staring hard with searching eyes in the direction he’d come, he could detect nothing… but that didn’t mean nothing was there.
When after an additional few paces the high building walls let in a greater amount of light, he glanced around more searchingly. This seemed like a dead end; wasn’t that just his luck? And at the very moment he came to this conclusion, he heard again those calculated steps approaching up the street, cutting off any escape.
His heart was doing funny things, and he told himself very firmly not to be stupid. But at the same time, he found himself backing away, eyes locked on the impenetrable darkness he’d just left, until he really did come up against a wall and undeniable proof that he could flee no farther. He tried again to catch his breath, rallying for the final confrontation. He hadn’t wanted to get involved — which was why he’d run — but now it had come to this, he would not go down without a fight.
The pursuer appeared. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Saitou Hajime detach himself from all-concealing shadow, a flesh and blood extension of the night, but it was the first time the sight had caused him to shiver so uncontrollably. He’d never thought Saitou could be so damn scary until being chased by him… until realizing just how sneaky and quick the cop truly was. He’d never been scared of him at all before, actually… Honestly, for all the stabbing and name-calling, they’d always technically been allies. Now Saitou had some purpose that didn’t necessarily put Sano on his side… that, considering Sano really had been in the way back there, even if merely by coincidence, quite possibly made Sano a target.
The officer emerged fully from the darkness and paused a moment in the pale light from the slivered moon. He raised an eyebrow as Sano fell silently, breathlessly into a fighting stance. “Your logic is so animalistic,” he remarked, beginning to move forward again with steps so slow they seemed almost languid.
“What do you mean?” Sano demanded. He should have known Saitou wouldn’t just kill him; he had to torment him first, of course.
“You’re like a dog. You sniff around in things that aren’t your business, you run off when you’re startled, and you turn and fight when you’re cornered.”
“So what?” If Saitou’s aim had been to make Sano angry, he’d succeeded. It hadn’t been Sano’s fault he’d stumbled on that shit just when the police were about to crack down on it; they should mark their stake-outs better. And hadn’t he tried to get out of their way as quickly as possible? Sure, that did make him look kinda guilty, but still…
Saitou was stalking toward him yet. “Aren’t you even going to protest you had nothing to do with that deal?”
“What good would it do when you never listen to anything I say anyway?” was Sano’s surly answer. He was just waiting for the damn cop to get within striking distance.
“And you think running from me and then attacking me is a better indication of your innocence,” concluded Saitou as that distance closed and Sano flew at him with clenched fists. Sano’s only reply was a sort of roar.
Saitou dodged most of his blows, blocked a few of them, returned several, and suddenly had Sano pinned against the wall in an iron grip. The young man struggled, panting and growling out half-intelligible profanities, but could not get free. He could only gasp in the scent of cigarettes as Saitou’s face came close to his and the older man said in a low tone, “This is what happens when you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Sano’s angry retort took a moment developing as he worked through the logic. “Wait… you knew I wasn’t involved and you chased me anyway?”
That insufferable smirk spread across Saitou’s face. “You ran.”
“Like I was going to stick around when you showed up!” Sano squirmed, angrier than before at Saitou’s nonsensical answer, but the other held him nearly still against the rough wall. “And, what, would you chase me whenever I ran?”
“Of course,” replied Saitou immediately.
“Weren’t you after those other guys, though?” Sano demanded. “Do you really have time to chase someone who’s not involved?”
“My men had them before you were halfway down that street; there was no harm in my entertaining myself for a while.”
“Figures your idea of entertainment is to make my life miserable. I thought the only thing you enjoyed was destroying evil shit.”
Saitou’s smirk widened.
Sano’s eyes did likewise, and again he strained in vain to get free. “You really are gonna kill me this time, aren’t you?!”
“Something like that.”
“Something…” Sano began, annoyed and confused, then trailed off both at the sudden flash in Saitou’s narrowed gaze and the fact that the latter was drawing very close. Sano, not sure what to think or feel in response to this, tried to back away, but he was already against the wall and there was nowhere to go. Saitou’s mouth closed over his, and Sano’s struggling ceased as if he were paralyzed. Saitou, who he’d always thought hated him, or who seemed to like nothing better than belittling and annoying him, or who at best didn’t really acknowledge his existence… that same Saitou… was kissing him. Was, moreover, working his mouth open with an insistent and far too dexterous tongue, pressing against him with a firm and far too hot body, and holding him in place with gloved and far too motionless hands.
This last condition made Sano disregard any potential pleasure in the action and break away violently — for however tightly those hands had clamped onto his hips, it was a less restrictive hold than the previous. He staggered two paces, fingers over his lips and rage swirling like the noisy blood through his body, and whirled, glaring death. His heart was racing, his skin burning, and he was sure his face must be bright red. And whether it was worse that Saitou Hajime had kissed him or that he’d really liked it, he couldn’t say.
“You asshole,” he snarled. “You think you can just do whatever you want whenever you please! Stab me or chase me or fucking kiss me or whatever the hell you feel like!”
Saitou raised an eyebrow. “Can’t I?”
“No!! You can’t just–“
“Do you really mean ‘can’t?'” Saitou broke in, still with that same expression on his face. Overriding whatever Sano might have planned to say in return, he continued, “Do you really mean to say that if I wanted to throw you down and have my way with you right here and now, there would be anything to stop me?”
Sano was absolutely horrified at the hot shudder that ran through his entire body at this; since when was he even remotely sexually attracted to Saitou? Since being kissed by him, apparently. “Like I’d ever let you touch me.”
The officer’s evil smirk did not diminish, but he rolled his eyes as he again began moving toward Sano. “You wouldn’t have any say in the matter.”
Sano couldn’t believe this. Was Saitou actually going to… to… And what was this burning that ran down his chest, twisted briefly in his stomach, and settled, tingling, in his groin? How could he possibly be having feelings like that in a situation like this?? As a result, he became more irate. He hated Saitou and his stupid ideas of entertainment and his stupid random threats and his stupid sexy eyes. There really wasn’t much to say, though, so he just attacked again.
Saitou proved even more slippery than before; Sano didn’t think a single one of the hits he threw connected, whereas Saitou bounced him off the wall a couple of times and eventually knocked him to the ground. Sano found himself unable to move, bruised, bloody, exhausted, with Saitou on top of him. The cop straddled his hips, leaning over him holding his arms above his head pinned to the ground, their faces close together. Sano didn’t close his eyes or attempt to look away as Saitou’s mouth again descended, but it wasn’t exactly a kiss; Saitou was saying, “You see?” — though the murmur was barely audible over Sano’s gasping breaths; and Sano could barely concentrate on the words as he was too busy fighting the traitorous impulse to raise his head and capture more of Saitou’s lips than just this light brushing against his own.
It was an effort even to remember that he abhorred this bastard, and several moments of staring breathlessly into searing gold before he managed to grate out, “Just get it over with.” This show of resistance would be entirely belied in a few moments, though, if the heat of Saitou against him down there didn’t diminish quickly.
“Get what over with?” Saitou wondered in a casual tone as he released Sano’s wrists and began to stand. “I think I’ve made my point.”
Disbelieving and irate, Sano sat up. Saitou was watching him impassively and lighting a cigarette, and, when Sano didn’t have anything to say just yet, smirked and turned. “Good night.”
Staggering to his feet, Sano felt his hands tingle as he clenched them. “Wait just one fucking minute, you son of a bitch!” This demand rose to a roar by the time it was finished, but Saitou did not pause or respond. And Sano, for all his rage, simply could not move. He trembled with a mixture of severe emotions, trying to come up with anything he could say that might bring Saitou back so he could kick his ass. Provided he could move at all, and provided that movement didn’t involve flinging himself on the older man and stuffing his tongue down that stupid throat.
That image — of Saitou melting out of the darkness once more, coming back over here, and again grinding Sano into the wall with a scorching kiss — was the last thing needed to send Sano’s blood rushing downward; skin prickling, head spinning, he tried to come to grips with the fact that Saitou Hajime had just given him a hard-on and the idea that either the asshole had some uncanny seductive powers… or Sano had been repressing something rather serious for quite some time.
“Goddammit,” he growled, turning unsteadily and slamming a fist into the wall behind him in a jerky motion. His other hand was threatening to wander to the frustrated bulge in his pants, so he clenched it as well and punched the wall again with an inarticulate angry noise.
He couldn’t believe that guy. What kind of person chased someone around for no good reason, kissed him, threatened to rape him, and then didn’t go through with it? Not a fucking normal person! Not that Sano wanted him to go through with it, but why did Saitou have to be such an equivocal freak? If he was going to get Sano in trouble for being ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ he should just arrest him and be done with it; if he acknowledged Sano was an innocent bystander, he should leave him the hell alone! If he wanted Sano he should fucking say so; if he didn’t, he should keep his hands off.
What was Sano thinking? He should keep his hands off, period. His hands and his damn mouth.
Unattended, one of Sano’s own hands had crept exactly where he didn’t want it, and with the realization that it had came the similarly infuriating realization that he didn’t want Saitou to keep his hands — or his mouth — off.
His night was obviously ruined beyond any hope of repair. He was ready to kill something, literally kill, tear it apart and blood and guts and everything; he was that angry. And what made it a hundred times worse was that he couldn’t be entirely certain this hypothetical violence was directed at Saitou. For all Sano wanted to do any number of horrible painful things to the officer, he was still combating the desire for the officer to do any number of horrible pleasurable things to him.
When he got home, it was a natural impulse to deal with his not-so-little problem, but the very idea of finishing what Saitou had started was infuriating and wrong. Giving in to what Saitou had made him feel would be making Saitou the winner, handing him a victory without a fight. Most of Sano’s body, though, was wondering who, exactly, was the winner here and who was the loser.
So he lay in bed with clenched fists and clenched teeth and tried not to think about anything exacerbating. There were two difficulties with this: first, that he wasn’t used to restraining himself when he was horny, and trying to keep from jacking off was an unusual and engrossing exertion; second, that he’d never been able to keep Saitou out of his head when the cop made him angry. It had been a problem even before thinking about the bastard had rendered Sano inexplicably, uncontrollably aroused.
If Sano had entertained any hopes that a good night’s rest would put the whole thing behind him, it didn’t take long to clear up the misconception. The maddening events of the night before immediately captivated him again upon awakening, and he had a sneaking suspicion his morning wood was really more of a carry-over from then. Still, he studiously didn’t touch it.
Whatever he’d been planning to do that day — if anything — was entirely forgotten in his frustration, but staying home lying around thinking about things offered far too many temptations. Once he’d cold-watered himself into presentability, he dragged himself up and out, and began wandering aimlessly.
Daylight (and people who didn’t know or care that he’d spent the night trying not to want to bang his arch nemesis) helped, and, when he ran into Katsu (who definitely didn’t know and definitely wasn’t going to), he had increasing hopes for a tolerable day.
“Morning, Sano,” the artist yawned.
“Morning,” replied Sano, trying to sound like nothing was going on. He was very bad at sounding like nothing was going on when something was going on, and Katsu threw him an immediate quizzical glance. But Katsu was very good at reading people, and apparently realized Sano didn’t feel like admitting something was going on — and therefore, good friend that he was, did not question. Yet. Sano, a little annoyed with his own lack of circumspection, feared it would not take much to change his mind. Still, he put on a brave face and added to his greeting, “You look like you been up all night.”
“So do you,” Katsu said mildly, with only the barest rise in the level of his left eyebrow.
Sano cleared his throat. “Yeah, well…” He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked around. “So what are you up to?”
“Trying to get my shopping done before I collapse.” Katsu had adopted his So we’re pretending everything’s normal, are we? tone. “I haven’t slept in a few days.”
“New issue’s all done, though?” Sano guessed, trying very hard to be and sound interested.
Katsu nodded with a slight smile. “And since you’re here, we might as well find some lunch before I finish shopping.”
Of course this caused Sano to brighten a bit almost in spite of himself, and he agreed readily. The idea of free food even took his mind off… everything else… for about five minutes, and during these minutes he actually managed some natural, rational conversation… until, when they’d nearly reached the restaurant they’d agreed upon, the matter intruded on his relative peace rather forcibly once again.
“No drug deals today, I see.”
Sano wasn’t sure why he turned. It wasn’t as if he needed confirmation of who was speaking, or wanted to see him. But turn he did, and — perhaps not so unexpectedly this time — felt a hot shiver run up and down his spine and then dissipate to tingle across his entire body. Why was he suddenly noticing how Saitou walked like a predatory beast always ready to pounce, continually waiting for, but never actually finding, worthy prey? Why did Sano seem to see for the very first time the almost teasing way Saitou’s jacket bunched slightly at his belt and that the man had the most amazingly nice-looking legs conceivable? He didn’t care about any of that, and he didn’t want…
Well, he did want. That was the problem.
He realized he’d been staring, silent, for several moments while Saitou, smirking, came to a halt.
Sano, burning with rage and whatnot, turned without a word and stalked away.
“What the hell was that?” Katsu wondered, catching up with him and sounding like he was waffling between amusement and worry.
“What the hell do you think?” Sano growled. “It’s Saitou.”
“Yeah, but when don’t you have anything to say to him?”
“I’m more pissed than usual, all right?”
“Why, what’s he done now?”
“Nothing,” Sano grated out truthfully; it was what Saitou hadn’t done.
Katsu was evidently baffled, but just as evidently entertained. “Well, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were checking him out just now. But of course I know better.”
Sano barely restrained himself from exploding. This would normally make him angry, of course, and Katsu would be expecting some sort of irritated outburst — but anything Sano said in reply at this point would be too angry, so he tried not to respond. But the fact was, he had been checking Saitou out, and he wasn’t very good at restraining himself, so as he walked a string of indistinct growling complaints leaked from between his clenched teeth.
So much for that good day. Just when he’d thrown Katsu off the scent, too. God damn that fucking bastard. Now he couldn’t even have lunch with his friend like he’d planned, which meant he either had to go hungry or find some other source of nourishment in an unstable frame of mind. Oh, and it meant he had to find some excuse for deserting Katsu, too. In that same unstable frame of mind.
“You look really tired, man,” was what he eventually came up with. “Why don’t we do lunch another day? You should go home and get some sleep.”
And although Katsu accepted this and let him off, his expression — slightly concerned, definitely amused, and penetrating overall — told Sano exactly how much he bought it as the actual reason for not having lunch together.
That Katsu was too good at figuring things out, combined with evidence that Saitou intended to plague Sano with this bullshit, meant Sano wouldn’t be hanging out with his friend until this issue was resolved. Exactly what resolution he anticipated he couldn’t be certain, but in the meantime he didn’t need Katsu’s knowing glances and ‘casual’ remarks.
This doomed him largely to solitude. He had other friends, of course, who were less perceptive, but their pursuits and the circumstances under which he generally interacted with them were too unhurried, left too much time open for reflection. Similarly inadequate was any part-time work he might have taken on, as the only type for which he qualified made good use of the muscles but small use of the brain. Opportunity for thought was the last thing he needed. He needed a distraction… something Katsu, what with politic talk and art talk and general banter, usually provided. Damn Saitou and his bastardly timing. The only real option was to try to keep himself occupied watching and interacting with the general populace of Tokyo and hope the problem would go away if he ignored it.
He should have known, though, how unlikely a circumstance that was. A few days after the brief but aggravating meeting with Saitou in the street, as Sano was trying to determine whether he was likely to fall asleep any time soon if he lay down in bed or whether he oughtn’t to go back out and find something to entertain him until it was a little later, there came a knock at his door. Without much thought he answered it.
His first impulse was to pretend nobody was there and slam it shut again, but this impulse only arose after a moment of shock that lasted long enough for Saitou to come inside and close the door himself. Sano’s second impulse was to attack immediately, but he didn’t act on that either. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he growled instead as Saitou stepped leisurely onto his floor and looked around.
“What do you think I’m doing here?” the other replied without looking back at him.
“Maybe you came to apologize.” Sano thought some sarcasm of his own was not ill-placed; he really couldn’t imagine Saitou actually apologizing for anything.
Neither could Saitou, apparently. “Apologize for what? I don’t think I’ve done anything to you lately.”
“You sure as hell made it seem like you were gonna.”
Saitou threw Sano a piercing glance over his shoulder. “Would you prefer I had?”
“No!”
“Then there’s obviously nothing to apologize for,” the cop shrugged. “No, I’m just here because I’m curious how you live.”
This was entirely incredible, and Sano wanted to say so, but there was no way he could accuse Saitou of actually being here to torment him further… for that would mean admitting that, ever since that night, the very sight of the man — almost the very thought of him — was enough to set Sano’s entire body on fire, to say nothing of the effect of having Saitou here, in his home, so damn close to his bed. Eventually all he said was, “So now you’ve seen it.”
“Yes,” replied the older man with a slight sneer. “It’s exactly what I expected.”
Sano had already voiced a defiant, “Oh?!” before the thought crossed his mind that he didn’t really want to hear Saitou’s assessment of his living conditions.
“You really are like a dog.”
Incensed, Sano seized him by the shoulder and yanked him around. “What the fuck is your problem, asshole? Is it really that much fun to give me this kind of shit all the time? Why don’t you find some other way to get your damn rocks off?!”
At Saitou’s casual glance up and down Sano’s figure, and at the latter’s deep shudder that couldn’t be invisible to those penetrating gold eyes, Sano became painfully aware of just how badly he’d worded that.
“I’m sure I could if I looked,” was Saitou’s reply.
Sano absolutely must cut this short before it ended like their last close encounter, so he commanded with as much collection as he could, “Get the hell out of my house.”
“Good night, then,” Saitou smirked as he nodded and obeyed. And that he’d gone so docilely could not make up for the ache that developed rapidly in Sano’s groin at the inadvertent study of the way Saitou’s lips curled and the unwanted ensuing mental image. They weren’t even nice lips, and Sano definitely didn’t want them sucking on him anywhere.
He tried to restrain the urge to make one of his usual destructive demonstrations of anger, not merely because he would prefer not to damage his own home but also because he was tired of Saitou dictating how he felt. Avoiding the demonstration did not negate the feeling, however, and that only made it worse. Additionally, neither ire nor restraint could change or lessen this intense arousal.
How could he be almost hard again after a mere couple of minutes? A few words, a few glances — how could that be all it took? It hadn’t happened before… he could only imagine (in horror) how much trouble it would have caused if Saitou had had this kind of effect on him back when serious events had forced them together so much… but Saitou had never kissed him back then… had never pressed against him like forge-hot iron conforming to the shape of Sano’s body…
And what was he supposed to do about it? Just get used to the fact that he could barely look at the man anymore without getting any number of obscene images in his head and similar urges all through his body? It wasn’t fair! He shouldn’t have to get used to something like that! He didn’t want to have sex with Saitou; he didn’t want to have anything to do with Saitou. He hated Saitou. It wasn’t fair to have his brain invaded with fantasies of the stupid cop shoving Sano down on the stupid hard floor and shoving his stupid hard cock into Sano’s ass, and it wasn’t fair how much he liked the idea. And he wasn’t curious how big it was, either, whether those fantasies were doing it justice.
“Fuck,” he growled, and said it again for good measure.
Obviously he couldn’t go to bed now. Gambling, drinking, fighting, anything… he had to find something else to do. In a nearly uncontrollable rage he stormed from his house, very possibly causing the same damage he’d tried to avoid only minutes before.
So evidently this problem wasn’t going to go away just because he ignored it. For one thing, Saitou wouldn’t let him ignore it. For another, neither would his own damn hormones. And Sano’s options — at least the ones that didn’t involve letting someone else dictate a major change in his life — were running out.
Something had to be done, though, as it was becoming a disturbingly routine issue. He could have made a list of problems that afflicted him on a day-to-day basis, and right there between ‘having to pay rent’ and ‘the Meiji government’ would be ‘inability to look at or think about Saitou Hajime without getting insurgently aroused.’ Such issues he usually learned to deal with if they seemed insurmountable, but, aside from Saitou striking him as very mountable, the very idea of learning to deal with something like this sent him into fresh spasms of anger whenever he considered it.
He was never surprised to see Saitou anymore; the bastard showed up anywhere and everywhere, whenever was least convenient for Sano to lose his presence of mind. The sequence of events was always very much the same: Saitou ‘coincidentally’ appearing wherever Sano happened to be with some perfect excuse for being there; announcing himself with a sarcastic comment that usually had some damnable double meaning; giving Sano any number of ambiguous looks while ostensibly ignoring him, until Sano’s body was on fire and his tongue completely tied; then making a smooth retreat back to his asexual life of police spying and hypocritical condemnation of evil. After a couple of weeks of this, Sano was beginning to feel like a high-strung puppet manipulated expertly by gloved hands.
The thought did cross his mind that perhaps it wasn’t Saitou specifically that had him so worked up — maybe he was just starved for sex in general, Saitou’s odd behavior had opened his eyes to that condition, and Saitou himself was merely taking advantage of what must, to him, seem an amusing situation. The theory held water; it had been a while since Sano had gotten any. He’d always been somewhat picky about lovers, despite being in no position for such an attitude.
For one blissful day of unrestraint this idea stayed with him and allowed him to believe he really could escape. Although he didn’t relish the thought of finding some random source of satisfaction for this need, he liked it better than that of living this way any longer. Throughout his mostly unsuccessful foraging for lunch among his acquaintances, his somewhat uninteresting barroom brawls in the afternoon, and his largely unproductive gambling in the evening, the inspiration carried him. All the way to the appropriate district he rode a wave of impending freedom, up until the very moment he found himself, not entirely without abashment as he’d never done it before, surveying the selection… and wondering disconsolately why they were all so young and pretty, and not a gold eye among them.
Damn that fucking asshole! As if it wasn’t bad enough for him to grab Sano’s attention, did he have to take all of it? Twist Sano around his little gloved finger, flick him away like ash, and leave him unfit for anything or anyone else? God fucking damn him!!
Well, Sano wasn’t sure he would have been able to go through with it anyway; he’d never slept with a whore (that he was aware of), and didn’t know that this was the best way to start.
Even so, damn fucking Saitou to fucking hell.
Of course, in the search for something — anything — to take his mind (mind?) off the subject that had lately wrought utter destruction on his stability as a person, eventually the dojo and its inhabitants became candidates. They were poor candidates at best; he would have to expend so much energy making sure they didn’t sense anything was wrong, he might end up keeping a very firm mental hold on the issue and defy his purpose… and this was a good indication of how desperate he’d become.
The outer doors had been repainted since the last time he’d been here — how long ago? He rarely came here anymore unless he thought he could get something out of it, and recently he’d been too distracted even to consider it. But he realized now that the last time might actually have been on that day. Which meant it had been… but, no, it didn’t matter; counting the time since that night would just imply he cared.
When nobody was immediately apparent in the yard, he entered the house. At the minimal lighting and utter silence, he might have assumed they were gone — at the Akabeko or rescuing someone or whatnot — if the outer doors hadn’t been unlocked. So he made a quick search through the halls and rooms, until he found himself unexpectedly staring up at a calendar on the wall. It was Saturday the nineteenth.
“Three fucking weeks,” he muttered. Twenty-one days he’d wanted to get into Saitou’s stupid pants. How the hell could it have lasted that long?
“Oh, hello, Sanosuke.” Kaoru smiled at him from the doorway. “What’s three weeks?”
“Nothin’,” he replied gruffly, turning from the hateful calendar and attempting to look casually at the young woman. “So where is everybody?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing; I just got home.”
Examining her more closely, he noted the clothes patchily dark with sweat and face bright-flushed with exercise. To his absolute horror, his reason (if it could be called that) skipped right over the shouldered shinai and came up with a completely different explanation for her dishevelment than ‘teaching at another dojo.’ And this was Kaoru. God, even if he didn’t have an entirely one-track mind, it sure as hell didn’t stray far. Would visit be at all worth it? His tone was still rough as he suggested, “Let’s go find them.”
Yahiko was practicing while Kenshin finished up the day’s chores. The rurouni had, of course, been aware of Sano’s presence but, not wanting to interrupt his work so close to its end, hadn’t come to greet him. They had a bath ready for Kaoru, and, once she was thus safely out of the way (after criticizing Yahiko’s stance), found themselves free to sit down and talk.
“We have not seen you for a while,” was Kenshin’s opening remark. “What have you been up to?”
Sano bit his lip against the immediate reply, Trying not to want to fuck Saitou, and, with a little more difficulty, managed to come up with, “Same old shit.” No… so far this didn’t seem worth it. Gathering up his energy, however, he proceeded boldly. “What about you guys?”
“Very little is new here,” Kenshin smiled. “I am sure you saw the doors.” And he went on to describe the other minutiae of recent changes to dojo life. It was a topic he never lacked words to discuss, which always bewildered Sano. It made a certain amount of sense that Kenshin preferred a placid and even rather boring existence to living under constant attack, but Sano just couldn’t quite wrap his head around the concept of so much complacency. Kenshin was happy for things to remain exactly as they were for as long as that state could be preserved; no wonder Kaoru hadn’t managed to get him into the sack.
God dammit.
Eager to abandon that train of thought, “And what about you, kid?” Sano forced himself to ask next. He knew this attention to the lives of the dojo menfolks might appear slightly unnatural, but was drawing a blank trying to dredge up any other subject (besides Saitou, or sex, or sex with Saitou) to introduce.
“Not much new with me either,” Yahiko shrugged. He seemed, Sano had noticed, consistently on the edge of defiance when talking to any of them. This was no surprise, given the treatment he received, at least on a superficial level, from the adults with whom he generally interacted — Kenshin kindly patronizing, Kaoru impatiently critical, and Sano blatantly teasing — but it seemed a bit out of place when merely describing the day-to-day trivia of the Akabeko. Sano wondered if he still talked to Tsubame like that; girl wasn’t likely to be giving it up if he did.
God fucking dammit.
Apart from and beyond his complete inability to divorce random sexual thoughts from innocent remarks and ensuing reflection, Sano found himself simply impatient with his friends’ conversation. It was as if they had a responsibility to entertain him and weren’t delivering. Everything they said struck him as profoundly boring, to a degree far closer to utterly intolerable than usual, and he found himself continually holding his breath for something more exciting — an inevitably futile expectation.
For a while the very oddity of this frame of mind carried him, but eventually the knowledge of exactly what kind of excitement he would prefer became too present to ignore, and his mood soured.
“I meant to ask,” Kenshin said suddenly as Yahiko had just finished up his narrative, “why you did not accompany Kaoru-dono to the Maekawa dojo today. You finished your work at the Akabeko early enough that you could have gone with her.”
“She’s only going over defensive moves I already know,” Yahiko grumbled. “I don’t need to hear her harping on that again.”
“A good defense is critically important,” Kenshin reminded the boy.
“Fuck that,” Sano muttered with vehement understanding of Yahiko’s plight. Trust that to come up just now.
Kenshin smiled placidly, aware of why the subject bothered Sano but not of the extent to which it did.
“Well, I’m gonna get going,” Sano declared, standing abruptly. He really had no excuse to offer for not staying, so he didn’t bother trying. “I’ll see you guys around.”
They didn’t question, and the robed appearance of Kaoru from the bath to issue orders was enough to distract Kenshin from any concern he might have felt at Sano’s behavior. So the young man was able to slip out with a wave and no further conversation.
Outside the pristine doors, he let out a long sigh. More trouble than they’re fucking worth, he reflected bitterly as he took off up the street toward home.
All such ungenerous thoughts about his friends (and, indeed, all his rational or semi-rational thoughts on any subject) were obliterated when he turned a corner and found Saitou, not a block from the dojo, smoking calmly alone and watching the lane in the direction Sano was headed.
This really was too much. Most of the previous encounters had been set up to look like chance, at least on their rudimentary surface level and to others, but now here was Saitou deliberately standing around at some random point on Sano’s route home very obviously waiting for him. It was more than he could bear.
Clenching his fists, he stalked over to the wolf and demanded, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Saitou turned toward him coolly. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” The tone was that of a question.
“It turns into my goddamn business when you quit even pretending it’s a fucking coincidence we keep running into each other. What do you fucking want?”
“From you?” Saitou asked, his narrowed eyes giving Sano the slow once-over to which Sano was becoming sadly accustomed. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Right.” Yet again Sano had to grit his teeth against the desire to call Saitou on this utter bullshit. “Of course.” If the cop didn’t want anything from him, he wouldn’t be here deliberately tormenting him… but, again, to raise this point would require admitting it did torment him. “Why would I think you standing around here like you’re waiting for me actually has anything to do with me?” Knowing Saitou was already quite aware of Sano’s condition and admitting to that condition were two completely different things.
“I wouldn’t care to guess why you think anything you do,” Saitou answered disdainfully. The motion he made as he said this, tossing his cigarette down and turning slightly as if to watch it fall, drew Sano’s eyes first to his unusually bare hand, then to the spot just beneath his ear where neck and jaw met. But Sano tore his gaze away before he could start reflecting on the harsh elegance of Saitou’s physical attributes.
“Yeah, same here,” he muttered, and even he wasn’t sure whether he was attempting to throw the insult back at Saitou or agreeing about the futility of trying to comprehend his own mental state.
“And if I wanted anything from you,” the wolf continued, “I could have had it long ago.”
Sano, who had turned to escape, pleased with himself for getting out of this situation so quickly, was frozen abruptly where he stood by this statement. It wasn’t so much the words themselves — maddening though they were — as the way they’d been spoken: a softer, more intimate tone than any he’d ever heard from Saitou, containing an undeniably personal sound — a feeling of you know what I mean — and an edge… Sano could only call it… seductive… He hadn’t thought Saitou capable of that, but it made perfect sense the officer would only employ it in saying something so antithetic to seduction.
Not that it mattered what he’d said; he could have been reading a grocery list in that tone and it would have stopped Sano in his tracks, dragged him back, set his heart pounding wildly. Entirely against his will the younger man turned again and looked at the older. The latter was a mere step away, much closer than Sano had thought; he could easily close the distance and…
“Yes?” Saitou said mildly, watching Sano with smirking unconcern, as if they’d just had some sort of normal conversation and Sano turning back at this point merely indicated something he’d forgotten to mention and not a nearly unconquerable desire for public sodomy.
Sano, captivated by the glint in Saitou’s narrowed eyes, had nothing to say.
Observing this, Saitou’s twisted smile grew. “Well, good night,” he remarked, and started to turn.
To this Sano did have a reply. “Goddammit, I fucking hate you so much,” he burst out in ultimate frustration. Clenching a fist, he intended to hit Saitou full-force, for all the gesture was more defeated than challenging, but Saitou raised his own hand and caught Sano’s with little effort.
“So I’ve noticed.”
At the hot tremor that moved through Sano’s form as Saitou’s ungloved hand kept hold of his, Sano by now could not be remotely surprised. He took a shuddering breath and closed his eyes. “Fuck you,” he whispered.
The very solid heat of Saitou’s body moving forward almost against Sano’s made him stifle a gasp; he felt like he was swaying, about to fall over, dizzy with the burning and the desire, divided between wishing that Saitou would do a whole hell of a lot more than just stand very close to him and that Saitou would fucking die and go to hell this very moment. A hand gripped his shoulder, pulling him even closer, and breath moved across his face; Saitou was going to kiss him. Sano, in a sort of continual shudder, found his face tilting upward without having willed his muscles to do so; his lips parted and he tasted the cigarette flavor of Saitou’s proximity as he drew breath.
And then nothing happened.
He opened his eyes to find the infuriating golden ones of the other man very close to his, the officer’s narrow, sculpted lips half an inch from his, and on Saitou’s face an expression that was unalloyed rage-inducing smugness.
Sano tore away, his own face twisting irately, his legs weak, his heart pounding violently much like the throbbing in his prominent erection. Stumbling backward, he clenched both hands into fists. He wanted to punch Saitou; actually, he needed to punch Saitou, several times, right in his goddamn smirking face, but he didn’t dare go close to him. “Fuck you,” he said again in a hoarse growl.
If anything, Saitou’s smile widened.
Sano backed up another three faltering steps, his eyes locked on Saitou’s and his entire body threatening to shrug off his mental control and do something he would really regret, then turned jerkily and ran.
He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.
After that he went on a semi-destructive rampage through some of the trashier neighborhoods near his own, pulling his punches only when not doing so might have gotten him arrested (a night in jail was the very, very last thing he needed right now). This made him feel slightly better for a few moments here and there throughout the night, and the relatively unfamiliar sensation of swiftly-approaching sleep born of exhaustion was a definite comfort, but none of it changed the fact he had to face in the morning:
He was about to break.
With this painful and aggravating awareness, which seemed the coloration of his thoughts the next day, came a voice almost more desperate than angry echoing through his head, Kyoto… Kyoto… No arguments, in particular, accompanied this to combat the heated retort, I am not letting that asshole force me to move to another fucking city! …just the constant reiteration, Kyoto… Kyoto… and the knowledge that down that road lay escape.
Possibly.
As his heavy footsteps traversed the streets absently and irately, related concepts swirled through his turbulent head: options he had in Kyoto… sex……… the truth that, for all he complained about them, he liked the Kenshingumi… sex with…… the ambiguous fact that that loud little girl and her companions lived in Kyoto… sex with Saitou… don’t forget, Katsu’s here in Tokyo too… sex with Saitou, intense, rough, extremely satisfying… not to mention other friends, less close but undeserving of casual abandonment still, who were also in the capital… not to mention Saitou…
“God fucking fuck it!” he cried out all of a sudden, utterly regardless of his location. The latter was a somewhat run-down street on the way to the docks, and his outburst startled a ragged and disreputable-looking stranger to jump and hastily make his way out of sight into an alley. Sano took off at an irate, pounding run toward the sea.
At the end of a short pier, ignoring the curious or wary looks those working on the dock occasionally gave him, Sano sat with his knees drawn up to his chin and stared out over the water. He tried with all his being to think about anything else — the ships slowly making their way in or out of the bay; the noisy gulls squabbling over the leavings of someone’s lunch or just wheeling and scanning with long, bored cries; the occasional sign of aquatic life beneath the shadowed water. And, whether the consistent lapping of this last against the supports or the cries of the sea-birds had a soothing effect, or because of the amount of effort he was putting into this, it worked for a while, and his mood calmed.
Even this slight improvement seemed, by contrast, like walking from a hellish landscape of war and terror into a blissful, pristine paradise, and he smiled as he finally stood from his place of reverie and retraced at a less hurried pace the steps he’d taken so precipitously to get there. Maybe now he could go dig up an early dinner somewhere.
Or maybe there was fucking Saitou fucking talking to some random fucking person just near where the fucking pier joined the rest of the fucking dock with his fucking back to Sano as if he fucking didn’t know Sano was fucking there and hadn’t fucking shown up just in fucking time to intercept him right the fuck after Sano had finally fucking managed to improve his fucking mood.
Stone-still, dumbstruck, a mixture of rage and despair pouring over him, pounding through his veins, and Kyoto seeming suddenly, in the back of his mind, a golden dreamland of freedom, Sano just stared. He’d continually told himself he didn’t want to be driven by someone else — especially someone like Saitou — to a major change in his life… but wasn’t Saitou already inducing major change in his life just by showing up every-fucking-where and toying with Sano like this, now on a near-daily basis?
The wolf turned a casual glance upon Sano’s motionless form, and the bright gold had its usual effect: Sano’s skin prickled and heated, and a tight center of desire began forming somewhere just below his gut. From there, however, the meeting went nothing like usual.
Sano saw it where Saitou could not, and didn’t have time to be irritated that his initial reaction was momentary concern for the other man’s safety. One of four dockhands carrying among them a huge, heavy crate, just as the group passed behind Saitou, caught his foot on something and stumbled. The object crashed to the ground and the man fell heavily into the officer, knocking him forward full against Sano.
And that was when everything, everything changed.
Though Saitou had touched him occasionally since that night, it had been nothing more than casual, circumstantial (though certainly calculated) brushes against arms or shoulders, or more pointed but still relatively innocuous incidents such as the seizure of Sano’s hand last night to prevent violence. There had been no full-body contact since the beginning of this debacle.
But now, as Saitou was pushed entirely against him (finally), Sano could feel the immediate stiffening, the hot tension, of the officer’s lean, muscular, perfect frame; he could see the fleeting unguarded look in the startled face; and the gloved hands that took hold of him inadvertently for their mutual balance seemed almost to tremble as they clutched at him, and to withdraw with pained reluctance as Saitou stepped hastily back the instant it was possible to do so.
Sano could feel his eyes widening, and his mouth opened slightly… but if he’d been speechless before, he certainly had nothing to say now. Actually he was slightly dizzy — whether because of the volume of blood now gushing violently downward to other parts of his body than his brain, or from overwhelming shock, he wasn’t sure.
Saitou, however, neither taunted nor berated him as expected. He’d looked away, under the pretense of locating a cigarette to replace the one that had been knocked from his mouth in the little accident, and this was the last clue the younger man needed, if indeed he needed another at all. Sano wasn’t even sure by what force of will he managed to turn and run away yet again. Really, he wasn’t sure he was even running; it felt more like stumbling.
Saitou wanted…
Saitou… wanted… him…
At first this revelation was so monumentally shocking as to render him nearly senseless; he reeled as if drunk all his breathless way home, and could barely make out his path or his destination. Why, exactly, it should be such a surprise took him some time to determine, since rational thought had fled and wild fantasy prompted by the realization ruled his chaotic mind. Eventually, though, he fixed on the idea that, not being much in the habit of self-restraint himself, he would never have interpreted Saitou’s behavior as such, nor believed that beneath it the man’s emotions were actually much the same as his own. That they were soon caused Sano’s shock to give way to the more customary wrath.
If Saitou did share Sano’s inconvenient desire — and Sano was fairly certain he hadn’t misinterpreted the signs — why in the name of fucking god was he playing this maddening game? Sano knew that was just it: it was a game. He and his feelings were a game to Saitou, who had even admitted, that first night, that he was ‘entertaining himself.’ Entertaining himself by tormenting them both and seeing who would crack first. Who would be the one to beg for what they both wanted, whose pride would take the beating when they eventually got it. Only Saitou would consider that entertaining. Only Saitou would come up with a game this unfairly biased, where he had all the self-control required to win and his opponent barely any.
Sano would have loved to declare, at that point, “Well, this is one game he damn well isn’t winning!!!” But he wasn’t at all certain that was indeed the case. Because Saitou was right: he was like a dog — a bitch in heat. At this thought he pounded a fist into the wall, which shuddered and creaked. Even Saitou’s fucking similes were invading him now. But it was true… he wouldn’t be surprised, at any moment, thinking of that bastard, to hear a growling whine grow out of nowhere in his throat, to find himself scratching at the door. And if he did go running off to him, if he did give in… would Saitou… surely Saitou would…
Oh, god, the thought was just too much. Of Saitou attacking him again, this time with no question of how it would end… of Saitou’s hands, Saitou’s mouth, Saitou’s cock acting on the desire that earlier today had been so harshly restrained… of an end to the tension and rage because surely Saitou couldn’t really say no if Sano pushed him…
If it was going to happen eventually anyway no matter what he did… and if that sadist would be amusing himself at Sano’s expense every moment between now and then… wasn’t the victory of depriving Saitou of that entertainment, even though it meant giving in, greater than the somewhat dubious triumph of holding out against the inevitable for as long as he could and driving himself crazy in the process?
It wasn’t really a difficult decision. He’d known he was cracking, and the afternoon’s encounter hadn’t exactly had less of an effect on him than it had on Saitou. He was close enough to the abyss that a few steps were all it took to hurl himself headlong into the darkness, headlong out of his apartment into the night that had fallen while he’d been marveling and stunned and deliberating. His movement was not entirely steady, but it was swift and vehement — now that he’d made his choice, he needed to act upon it as quickly as possible before the stubborn dignity that thought it still existed and was still, somewhere in his head, screaming out against this course of action got the better of him and changed his mind.
Saitou actually looked a little surprised when Sano, astonished himself at the luck that found the man at home but not about to waste time thinking about it, burst into his house and interrupted his quiet dinner with the scowling demand, “Fuck me now.”
“And if I don’t feel like it?” the officer wondered dispassionately.
“I don’t believe you,” growled Sano. “I don’t give a shit what you feel like doing anyway; we’re gonna have sex now, and there’s not one damn fucking thing you can say that’s gonna make it not happen.”
Glancing at the clock, “My wife should be on her way over by now,” Saitou replied in the same placid tone.
His wife…
Sano felt suddenly cold, lost, directionless. He hadn’t really wanted to do this, not least because of the blow to his pride… to have that blow struck without even the consolation of the resolution he’d been anticipating… he didn’t know what to do. He was at his wits’ end.
“You could come back later,” suggested Saitou, “if you’re that desperate.”
If you’re that desperate.
That. Was. The. Final. Straw.
Sano had been on edge for a month now, the tension building and building without any foreseeable release, and this was simply too much. Like a really good orgasm, slow and extended yet sharp and overwhelming, the fury returned all at once in an inexorable wave. It took control of him, blinding him and directing him, and before he even realized what he was doing, he’d flung himself at Saitou with every ounce of strength in his body.
The sensations of knuckles meeting cheekbone and knee meeting stomach, especially followed as they were by the second full-body contact of the day, might have been the most erotic experience of Sano’s life. It even seemed to surprise Saitou, who grunted and fell beneath the assault; he quickly recovered, however, and immediately gained the upper hand, returning the punch to the face so hard it made Sano see stars. They wrestled across the floor until Sano found himself, not for the first time, helplessly pinned beneath Saitou’s body, flat on his back, panting, aroused to the point of pain.
A throbbing haze surrounded everything and distorted his vision, and gave Saitou an even more sinister look than usual… but could not disguise the expression on the cop’s face, close to Sano’s as that was. In his earlier assessment Sano had been absolutely right: Saitou wanted him, still, always, with a fury to match his. He might pretend to be cool and aloof, but he couldn’t hold out under this kind of pressure any more than Sano could.
The movement by which their lips met was abrupt and intense, yet startlingly natural and almost smooth. Saitou’s hands had locked so fiercely onto Sano’s upper arms that the latter were in danger of losing circulation, his knees tight around Sano’s hips; and they were both very clearly as hot and ready as Sano had been during their every previous encounter — though the younger man was beginning to rethink his assumption that it had been he alone feeling it. To the extent he was able to think about anything at all, that is.
They broke apart, and this movement seemed as angry as everything else — angry at each other for what they were doing, angry at the need to breathe, or just angrily aroused, it was impossible to tell. As soon as he had sufficient air in his lungs, “Fuck me now,” Sano growled again.
“Fine,” Saitou replied, in essentially the same tone, and attacked their clothing in quick and efficient succession. Insistent — no, frenetic hands dove beneath Sano’s wraps and began removing them so deftly that only the consoling thought, At least he’s not wasting time, kept him from the much more disturbing and infuriating thought that Saitou must have studied what he wore beneath his clothing in detail in order to get him out of it so easily.
Saitou’s fingers were inside him before Sano had even realized he was accessible in that area. “Fuck!” the younger man gasped, attempting to beat back his wrath by forcing himself to try to think of this as just sex instead of sex with Saitou… pretend it was someone else… pretend he was merely touching himself… That didn’t work, of course, since his wrath was in proportion to his lust and both were aimed specifically at the man on top of him. So the reaction he actually went with was to squirm angrily downward, trying to force those fingers deeper.
The officer had shifted his body somewhat to the side the better to go about this preparatory action, had shifted his mouth down to Sano’s neck and shoulder the better to bite and suck with wounding force. In response to this Sano was writhing and snarling — he really couldn’t call the sound ‘moaning,’ though it was just as much a positive reaction to the sensations as that more friendly type of noise would have been — and attempting rather unsuccessfully to wrap one leg around Saitou’s waist.
As if it wanted to dig into him just as energetically as the first, Saitou’s other hand was traversing Sano’s chest and side from arm to hip, abrading upward with the heel and raking back down with the nails in hard, insistent caresses that might leave bruises and were certainly drawing blood. Sano therefore felt no guilt (and wouldn’t have even if he’d been thinking clearly) digging his own fingertips into the tense, muscular back that shifted above him as Saitou ground his erection against the younger man’s leg with force that bordered on complete abandon.
Saitou had no proper lubricant, and merely worked at stretching Sano open as methodically as the atmosphere of desperate need could allow. Sano wasn’t exactly what he would call ‘relaxed,’ but the determination to get this over with that infused him (not to mention the perpetual explosion of uncontrollable hormones under which he was currently operating) assisted in keeping him from tightening up too exceptionally. It still hurt, but he didn’t much care. And when Saitou abandoned his erotic mutilation of Sano’s chest in order to draw his tongue thoroughly and wetly over his other hand and then transfer as much as he could onto his straining cock, Sano knew it was going to hurt even more, and still didn’t much care.
Similar to Sano’s previous exclamations, Saitou’s groan upon entering him was more of a growl. For his part, Sano finally managed a sound more typically suited to the current activities… mostly because, though it did hurt, the pain was so much in keeping with the anger, and the accompanying pleasure so great, that the combination of these multiform feelings largely took control of him. Able now to wrap both legs easily around Saitou’s torso, he rotated his hips insistently, encouraging Saitou farther into him. The older man shuddered above him, still growling slightly, and kissed him again so hard they both tasted blood.
The self-control Sano had, earlier that very day, been cursing in Saitou he now blessed, for the wolf’s motions were slow at first, giving Sano time to adjust. As the young man’s body fully integrated the pain with the pleasure and welcomed the mixture with no uncertainty, his erection, which had softened on penetration, hardened completely again. Whether Saitou felt this, trapped as it was between their rocking bodies, sensed Sano’s readiness by other cues, or was simply no longer able to hold back, he proceeded to a quick, hard pattern of deep thrusts, locking as he did so his teeth into the flesh of Sano’s shoulder as if to muffle his sounds of pleasure or his loud, trembling breaths.
Sano could do nothing but clutch at him, his own panting and groaning much the same, occasionally twisting his hips for a new, mind-shattering angle. How long it lasted he had no clear concept; he only knew the orgasm it led to was hard, protracted, and monumental — possibly the most perfect thing he’d ever felt. His head, which had lifted off the floor slightly at some point along with his shoulders, fell back, eyes closed, to ride the wave of white heat before he returned slowly and reluctantly to reality. There he lay, gasping, partially limp, against the warm floor while Saitou finished.
With a final thrust almost brutally vigorous, a groan, and a tightening of his teeth into Sano’s skin, Saitou came as well, and finally lay still, except for a slight, subsiding trembling as his tight muscles relaxed. His damp, ragged breaths, stinging a bit against Sano’s shoulder in the wound he’d occasioned there, mixed with Sano’s as the only sound in the room.
This near-silence, after the glorious chaos of moments before, seemed extremely loud. Though the burning glow throughout Sano’s entire body, the echoing shockwaves of pleasure and pain, seemed to discourage any sort of verbal communication at this point, he was starting to feel he really needed to say something — if only he could think what. Then the peculiar haze of indefinite emotions and half emotions, frames of mind shattered and rebuilding in different forms, was pierced abruptly by the sound of insistent knocking.
“Shit,” muttered Saitou close to Sano’s ear.
At this, now he wasn’t as angry as he had been for the last several weeks, Sano could feel nothing but surprise and perhaps some amusement. He’d never heard Saitou swear quite so blatantly before. Incredulous, he wondered, “Is that actually your wife? You actually weren’t lying about that?”
“It is and I wasn’t,” Saitou replied sourly. He pulled out of Sano with a slight noise of discomfort, and, standing slowly, looked around with a very abstracted expression. When his eyes passed Sano, however, the latter got the impression the officer was combating a strong temptation to ignore the obstinate knocking and… do something else.
“I’ll get out of your way, then.” Sano, a little surprised at the comradely way he’d made this statement, also stood — more slowly than Saitou had, and with a great deal more discomfort — and attempted to locate his clothing. His wraps were torn to unusable pieces, which earned Saitou a few muttered curses that yet lacked the vehemence of anything Sano had uttered against him for a month or perhaps forever; the scraps were, however, at least suitable to wipe away the evidence — including some blood — of their activities. Soon the young man was reasonably clothed and inquiring of the similarly reasonable other the way to the back door.
Halfway out this aperture, Sano couldn’t help hesitating, glancing again at Saitou. It felt strange, almost bewilderingly so, to look at that sharp, handsome face without the rush of overwhelming wrath to which he’d become so accustomed. He didn’t have anything to say, but still felt something needed to be said. Finally he just decided on, “Well, good night.”
This might, Sano thought, have been exactly what Saitou had intended to say, and Sano’s having gotten to it first rendered it a less desirable farewell. But before Saitou turned to answer a call of, “Hajime? Are you home?” from the other end of the little house, he did fix unreadable but very pointed eyes on Sano as if to make some other, silent comment… Sano had no idea what. So the young man moved away, closing the door as quietly as he could, into the small yard behind the house whence he had to climb a low wall to reach the street.
He had no idea where things would go from here. Why that tolerant atmosphere? Why that last, serious look? Why this drastic decrease in anger? It was paradoxically infuriating that, now he’d actually done the deed, the idea of being fucked by Saitou wasn’t nearly so infuriating. Though fairly certain he still didn’t want to want Saitou, he was far less certain of the ‘game over’ he’d anticipated on the way here. Goddamn confusing bastard. The one sure aspect of the situation was that it had been every bit as enjoyable — for both of them — as he’d predicted, that he was finally satisfied.
For the moment.
Well, he sure as hell wasn’t going to think about that little addendum, nor speculate on what Saitou’s next move would be… or what he wanted it to be. But as he slipped away into the night and concentrated mostly on the residual pain and dissipating afterglow rather than the future, he couldn’t help reflecting with a grin — somewhat bitter though it was — that a dog and a wolf weren’t so dissimilar after all.
This story, which I’ve rated 
, was for 30_kisses theme #24 “Good night.”
Admittedly few of the Saitou/Sano scenarios I set up were 100% healthy relationships, but this… this is completely fucked up. Why did I write it? Why did I find it funny back when I wrote it? I don’t know. I guess it’s not too bad, though, as an examination of a really bastardly version of Saitou.
Businesspeople stay at classier places. Vacationing families stay at cleaner places. The homeless looking for a temporary refuge stay at cheaper places. Which leaves really only a couple of reasons for anyone to come to this run-down old motel. That said, it seems appropriate that the little soaps in the bathroom have been reproducing during the night. At least I assume that’s why there’s two more of them than last time I looked.
I don’t like to shower right after he leaves every time, but I can’t have the distraction of his scent hanging around me all day. Construction work isn’t the safest job in the world even when you’re not stopping at random moments to moon over someone who’s by now far off.
Far off in more senses than one, since it isn’t just that he lives in a city half an hour away and only comes to this dumbass little town to see me. There’s a wife and some kids and a normal, upstanding, heterosexual life in there somewhere too. It doesn’t matter that I’m not working today; I don’t need that thought, which his scent always leads to, hovering around me in any case. Too fucking depressing.
I always take a cold shower the morning after. I’ve found it’s just a good idea. And I never use the little soaps, which are creepy for reasons other than that their numbers have doubled since I last looked.
Sometimes — a lot of the time — I think it would have been better if we’d never met. If his car hadn’t gotten a flat that day just in the right spot for me and some of my co-workers to help him out, if I hadn’t caught his eye for whatever reason.
None of the times I think that are when he’s actually here.
You might take me for a gay stereotype if you saw how long I spend washing my hair, but it’s really only in this motel. At home it’s just an in-and-out thing, but here I’ve got a cold, empty room to face once I’m finished; there are some things a guy’s just not strong enough for, embarrassing as that is to think about.
I never know when he’s going to show up; it’ll be some day like every other, and near the end of my shift I’ll look over and see him on the other side of the chain-link rent-a-fence around the construction site… just standing there smoking, waiting for me.
The other guys think he’s my parole officer. In another situation, that might be hilarious.
It’s the weirdest mix of emotions, the reaction I always have to seeing him. First — and, yeah, I’m aware that’s significant — it’s this rush of happiness like he’s my best friend I haven’t seen in years, even though he’s just a fuck-buddy I might have seen a week ago.
Second, of course, there’s the arousal. The first time we slept together, it was some novel one-night stand for me — not every day this kind of bum snags a hot P.I., is it? — and some sort of stress-relief for him — for his purposes, I could have been anyone — but there’s no denying that we turn each other on, and seeing him there by the fence where he wasn’t the last time I looked is a jolt like nothing else.
Next it’s this intense irritation, because it also brings up every last bit of confusion and guilt I feel each time I think about him and this situation — not to mention he’s always got on this aloof expression like he’s better than everything he’s looking at, or this self-satisfied smirk that’s just annoying.
And then, after that… well, did I mention confusion and guilt?
It’s confusing because when I get off work, we spend the rest of the day together. I don’t remember when that started or even really why; we used to just head straight for the motel, because it’s not like we get along all that well outside it. But now we sit around at some stupid restaurant talking about what happened that day and that week and what’s going on at work — his is always way more interesting than mine — and whatever else might come up… sometimes it seems like we’re not talking about anything at all, and we argue over most of it anyway, but we’re always saying something.
The guilt’s a little more complicated. He doesn’t love his wife, and things never go smoothly at home; I don’t think they have for a while. He doesn’t talk about his family much, but when he does I get the point: they’re only still together for the sake of the kids. But they are still together. The problem isn’t really on my end, though. I’m too selfish to feel all that bad because I’m ‘the other woman’ or whatever you want to call it, and sometimes I just wish they’d get a fucking divorce already and end all the drama.
No, the problem arises from his unshakable code of moral absolutes: it’s wrong to cheat on your wife; end of story. It’s another thing he doesn’t really mention outright, but as much as I’ve talked to him by now, I can tell. He hates what he’s doing with me, hates or at least is angry at himself for it. But he keeps doing it anyway: purposely taking a route that’ll bring him by this town on every job, even when it’s out of his way; planning slightly longer trips just so he can come here and see me unsuspected… come here and fuck me…
And the next morning I get up and head straight for the shower without looking behind me at the other side of the bed or around me at the room, unwilling to admit yet that it’s painful to wake up alone… that it’s painful to think maybe he leaves so early each time because he can’t stand to look at me and think about what he’s doing wrong. And I try to keep myself from imagining what it would be like if there was no wife waiting at home, no kids that need two parents…
I guess I should be flattered that I seem to be worth breaking the rules so consistently for, but really all I feel is a little sick when I think about it. Because one of these days I know he’s going to tell me this was the last time, and he’ll just be doing what he believes he should have done long ago, doing the right thing — so I won’t be able to argue with that, because it would hurt him if I did. Or, worse, he won’t tell me anything and’ll simply never show up again. And I’ll live out my meaningless life in this boring town glancing over to the fence to see if he’s there, and he won’t be… and I’ll keep telling myself that if I just look one more time, he’ll be there… that he’s just been busy but today’s the day…
All right, yeah, so maybe I love him. God dammit, how the hell did this happen.
Motel wash-rag’s like sandpaper, but at the moment I kinda like it. It’s distracting, and I spend a couple of minutes just scrubbing at random parts of my body watching my skin turn red. I almost wish I could bleed. But I don’t really go in for all that emo shit — my hair won’t comb down over my eyes anyway, even when it’s wet — so I might as well just get out and face the music. Face the empty depressing motel room, I mean.
And, you know, the long shower’s actually made it worse today. Why did I have to fucking realize I love him just now when he’s already gone, when I’ve acknowledged he may never come back? I’m an idiot, that’s why. He calls me that sometimes, and I guess it’s true. Fucking worthless idiot.
“Were you trying to use up all of their hot water?”
These words, the smell of fresh cigarette smoke, and the bafflingly unexpected sight hit me simultaneously as I exit the tiny bathroom, and I find the rough white towel slipping from my suddenly weakened fingers to cover my bare feet on the cool, hard carpet. And I can only stand and stare.
He smiles; it’s the same look as always, but there’s added to it something more personal than I’ve ever been privileged to see before: it’s a much more private, inclusive smirk that, as soon as my utterly stunned brain manages to get control of my motionless body again, draws me inexorably to where he’s lying casually on the bed.
“You’re still here,” I state inanely as I slide across the cheap sheet to his side.
“This is your day off, isn’t it?” He seems to be enjoying my shock, the bastard. “My wife’s not expecting me home until tomorrow morning.”
And somehow, “Why?” is all I can come up with to say.
He raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t I tell you yesterday? My case took an entire day less than I’d expected.”
Is that statement entirely honest? Or is it his way of saying he planned ahead to spend the day with me? I don’t have the nerve to ask. I can’t yet bring myself to tell him what I’ve realized, because what if that’s the catalyst for him to end it? I don’t think I could bear to tell him and then have him walk away forever.
I shift into a better position for a long, slow kiss, and he reaches blindly for the ash tray on the bedside table before slipping his arms around me. The hot, ecstatic feeling of having him here, still here, here with me, ready to spend the day with me, perhaps even by prearrangement, leaves little space for other thought: for the moment I’m so full of joy I can’t help thinking that someday he’ll get things worked out on his end, we’ll get rid of the fence, and he’ll be mine for real; we’ll make this room and this motel and this town and this two-edged situation just an ambivalent memory.
This story, which I’ve rated 
, was for 30_kisses theme #25 “Fence.”
Unique to this story: narrating voice is disparaging of psychiatric patients and treatment.
It’s always thirty billion degrees when I get home from class, because he has the air conditioner set not to run when neither of us is here. Saving money or something. So the first thing I have to do is turn it up all the way. Then I toss my backpack next to the couch and my keys somewhere nearby, and sit down to yank my shoes off, humming the song that was playing on the radio in the car. I swear some of those songs from the 50’s only still get played because they get stuck in your head so easy. Some people might call that ‘catchy,’ but I call it fucking annoying.
There’s nothing quick to eat in the kitchen; there never is. I bug him to buy better food, but he goes for all that ‘sensible’ bullshit. And there’s only so much a poor college student like me can afford to buy on his own.
I end up drinking the rest of the milk, then flop down on the couch. I find my keys again that way somewhat painfully, and throw them on the floor. With a yawn I arrange the cushions better and close my eyes. Hopefully I won’t wake up until he’s home and making dinner… or maybe if I wake up right when he gets home I’ll be able to convince him to make grilled cheese sandwiches. With that happy thought, I drift off.
Almost the moment I’m really asleep and nothing’s left of my actual surroundings, it starts: I find I’m sitting somewhere I don’t recognize on some wooden steps — or a porch, I guess — my chin in my hands. It seems like I’m annoyed; I think I came into this dream a little late and missed stuff. Maybe a lot of stuff. I’m staring at some funny walls and doors that look like… something out of Crouching Tiger or something.
I yawn and mutter incoherently, and although it’s definitely the familiar feeling of me moving, I don’t have any sense of really being in control, of having sent the commands from brain to body to do those things. Guess I’m just along for the ride here, then.
One of the doors opens — slides open — and someone comes in. Well, this is outside, but he comes through the door. I recognize him right away, except he looks all Chinese. And he’s wearing some goofy outfit with a… skirt… I swear it is.
I realize I just said something to him. I don’t think I was making fun of the skirt, though, which is what I’d actually be doing if I were in charge here. Anyway, somehow it doesn’t seem to bug me that he answers in a language I don’t know: “始めまして. 私 石田散薬 という 妙薬 を 扱っている 多魔 の 薬売りで 藤田 五郎 と申します.” He’s pretty close in front of me now, opening this box he had on his back and holding up this paper sack. He sounds like a total yuppie, too, as he keeps talking about it; I think he’s selling it. Door-to-door salesman’s not something I ever would have thought to see him as; it’s pretty funny.
“待った 待った,” I tell him, whatever that means. “俺 は ここ の 者 じゃねーよ.” I guess I don’t want any of the paper bag stuff. “ここ の 者 は 留守 だぜ みんな.”
He looks kinda pleased with this. “そうなんですか…”
Something besides his funny clothing is obviously wrong here, because whatever I say next sounds pretty suspicious.
He just laughs, though, giving me a bright and somewhat creepy smile as he replies, “この 目 は 生まれつきな もんで.”
But evidently I’m not taking that answer. I can feel my eyes narrow — though not to the extent of the squint he’s got going — and I reach out and grab his wrist. “そう か い じゃお,” I growl accusingly. “薬売りにゃ全然 似合わね この竹刀 ダコ. これ は 生まれつじゃねえよな. てめ 何者 だ?”
Smiling, he just looks at me for a moment. Then he lets up on his squint and murmurs very pointedly, “なかなか 鋭い男 なんですね, 相楽 佐之助君.”
The uncanny color of his eyes has always been riveting, but at the moment I don’t have time to be captivated. His words are a jolt, and I’m jumping backward quickly and warily. For good reason, too: as he continues to speak in a dark tone, he’s pulling from almost nowhere — well, from his back — a real, actual sword.
This shit keeps getting weirder.
Still, I don’t seem to be as surprised as I reasonably should be at my pedemarketer-boyfriend pulling a sword out of nowhere or his back. I’m just making some grim comment and tensing up like I’m getting ready to fight him. Maybe I’ve got a sword too?
And then, I guess in response to my remark, he — I swear I’m not kidding — licks the sword. What the hell kind of kinky shit is this?! Isn’t he afraid he’s going to cut his tongue? God! “いいだろうよ,” I growl at him, not caring much for this behavior. I slam my fists together menacingly. “受けて 立つぜ!” Wait… am I going to fight him with my bare hands?? “てめえ の 正体 は この 拳 で 聞いて やろ!” I assert, and charge. I guess I am. Well, the adrenaline I think I might have conjured out of nowhere (from my back, maybe?) convinces me pretty well that I know what I’m doing. And the punch I throw at his face seems pretty effective.
At least, for about five seconds it does, until it becomes obvious he wasn’t knocked away by it, he stepped away to get his own attack ready. “成程,” he says. “ケンカ 一番と噂される だけおって いい 拳打 を しているよ. だが…” As he pulls the sword back and holds it funny, he finishes in this irritatingly disdainful tone, “それも 明治 という 泰平 の 世 で の 話 幕末 の 京都 に 於いて は この 程度 の 拳打 は 全く通用しない.” Apparently the meaning of the words is just as annoying as the tone, if my rush of indignation at them is any indication, but again I don’t really have time to react, because — shit, he’s fast!! — he’s suddenly racing at me with the sharp end of that sword pointed where I’d really rather not have it.
I try to dodge, but my movements seem sluggish and meaningless compared to his. Holy shit, that fucking hurts! Right into my shoulder goes the sword, and right through something hard and solid goes my entire body with the force of his attack. I skid and crash to a halt on my side, grating across the wooden floor of whatever building this is, pummeled with rubble from the smashed wall, losing sight of him somewhere even when the dust and the haze of pain allow me to see anything at all.
Oh, and I’m pissed off now. I’ve barely stilled before I’m hauling myself to my feet with a roar, swaying just slightly with pain and the loss of equilibrium. “どこ を 向いてる, 細目野郎?” I demand, catching sight of his back as I stand. “まだ 終わっちゃいねえぞ!”
“威勢 が いい な. だが…” He turns casually toward me; the sword is gone from his hand, probably because the snapped-off end of it’s still sticking out of my screaming shoulder. “大人しく 寝ていた 方 が 身 の 為 だったな,” he says; “致命傷 に 至らなかったとは 言え 深 傷 に は 代わない.” And though I don’t understand, it’s no surprise I’m not pleased by the admonition.
“るせい!” I bellow. “深 傷 は 負ったが てめえ の 刀 も 砕けた! 勝負 は これ から だ!” With this I rush to attack him again.
If I thought my chances were better now he’s got no sword, boy, was I wrong… he half dodges, half blocks my punch and at the same time slams the protruding end of the broken weapon into my shoulder. Through the agony this occasions, only a hot blur is his hand on my face, his harsh command “寝ろ,” and my swift descent.
I jerk awake as my skull should hit the floor, and I think I’m making some kind of funny gasping sound. Disoriented for a second, it takes me a bit to realize I’m in my apartment on the couch and nothing unusual is going on. My heart’s pounding like mad, though, and I swear for a split second I can feel ghostly echoes of the pain from my dream.
He’s sitting in the chair across from me reading the paper and looking as American as ever, and I can’t help staring at him for a bit. He raises an eyebrow at me as he turns a page. With a frown that melts into a yawn, I get up and go over and smack him.
He looks up at me skeptically.
“That’s for stabbing me,” I tell him.
The eyebrow goes higher, so I take his paper, throw it on the floor, and climb onto his lap. “You’re just as big a asshole in my dreams as you are in real life.”
“And I’m sure you’re just as big an idiot,” he replies, groping my ass.
“Well, I guess you thought so, ’cause you fucking stabbed me.” But I’m frowning as I say this. The more I think about it, the weirder that dream seems — because I usually dream about things I’m familiar with, you know? And I’m familiar with him, of course, and his bastardliness, but I don’t know anything about katanas or whatever, and I definitely don’t know any other language.
“You probably deserved it.”
“Maybe I did.” Maybe it was some kind of psychic message. That would be cool, except… why would I get a psychic message about my boyfriend stabbing me? Of course there’s the obvious sexual meaning, but it didn’t feel like that kind of dream. Maybe it was a warning, letting me know that everything I’ve been worrying about lately’s been right on target.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, with more curiosity than concern.
“Nothing.” I jump up. “I’m gonna take a shower.” Pulling off my shirt, I head down the hall.
I can hear him following, and soon he’s standing at the bathroom door watching me strip. Obviously he picked up my shirt on the way — which was mostly why I dropped it in the hall — but he doesn’t say anything about me throwing the rest of my clothes all over the bathroom. I’ll never get it — how is the hall different from the bathroom, when they’re both places you’re not supposed to throw clothes? He’s weirdly picky like that.
I close the shower curtain and turn on the water, but don’t get in just yet. First I have to say over my shoulder, “You coming?” As if I really need to ask. The sex is the one thing in this relationship I could never complain about. Hell, that’s probably why I’ve stayed as long as I have. That and the money. Which is really sad. Anyway, I step into the shower as he starts to unbutton his shirt.
It’s hard to use up all the hot water in a big apartment complex like this, but we’ve done it, like, three times now. I’m really tired by the time we’re finished, and neither of us says much of anything as, vaguely and mostly as if it doesn’t matter, we get ready for bed. And I’ve pretty much stopped thinking about the dream by the time I’m curled up beside him in a nice haze and falling asleep.
I can’t help but remember it the next day, though.
He’s almost always up and gone a lot earlier than I am — I’m not one for morning classes — so I come to alone, as usual. The new images in my head are already dimming, but that doesn’t mean I’m forgetting them. Having a second dream like that so soon after the first is more than a little startling.
I was still in pretty bad shape, and had to lean real hard on this woman’s shoulder to stand up. He was fighting some little red-headed guy in a dress, and none of the people watching seemed very happy about it. I’m not sure who was winning, though, and I woke up pretty soon after making some fatalistic-sounding comment in Chinese or whatever again. “無理 だぜ 嬢ちゃん… 俺達 には 止められねエ…”
I lie in bed for a bit and watch the image of the blue outfit he was wearing this time — a much better choice than his previous thing — blur into the ceiling as the dream fades. I have to wonder, really wonder, what this all means. Two in a row is no coincidence, and non-coincidental dreams are pretty much always important and trying to tell me something, right? And in this case the message seems fairly obvious.
My boyfriend’s a freak.
I’m broken from the downward spiral of this reverie by the grumbling of my stomach, and I remember the other thing I forgot last night: the dream and the shower distracted me from the fact that I didn’t have any dinner. Jerk probably had his own while I was getting beat up by him inside my head, and didn’t bother to wake me up for it. Or, I amend with a little more charity, lost track of the fact that he was human and forgot to eat entirely. Because he does that sometimes too.
With an inarticulate remark I’m fairly sure is about food — see, I make as much sense in English as I do in whatever-dream-language — I finally haul my ass out of bed and go to see which of my guesses is correct.
The issue bugs me on and off all day, but not so much that I can’t pay attention at school. Or at least not so much that I pay any less attention than I ever do. Between classes, I’ve got to dodge/hide from the poster people who want me to come to the environmental club thing and the campus improvement panel thing and the association of gay-bi-les-whatever students thing. Drive-time I’m too distracted trying to choose a new radio station (hopefully one that won’t annoy the shit out of me) to think about dreams. But once I get home, it’s on my mind full-force once again. I turn up the air conditioner and, after another futile glance through the fridge, plop down on the couch to do some homework.
I should know better. Know better than to look in the fridge and better than to think I’m going to get any homework done.
“なかなか 鋭い男 なんですね, 相楽 佐之助君.” I still don’t understand a word of it, but phrases are replaying in my head like they should mean something. “幕末 の 京都 に 於いて は この 程度 の 拳打 は 全く通用しない.” The image of my fist meeting his face, of him charging at me with that sword. “俺達 には 止められねエ…” Him fighting that other guy and me just totally despairing of a good outcome… And what’s the significance here, anyway? That I had two of these dreams? If I went to sleep now, would I have another one?
But there’s no way I can take a nap today, I remind myself dejectedly… I already put off studying for my marketing test, which is tomorrow, by wasting yesterday evening. And I don’t have time to dwell on dreams either, I add firmly. With a sigh I go back to the couch from the random pacing I was doing, dig out my notebook, and find that my marketing book isn’t in here. It’s probably in the car.
With an annoyed groan I lean my head onto the back of the cushion and glower at the ceiling. I don’t want to walk all the way out to the car through this heat… why the hell can’t I bring stuff in when I get home?
I turn on the TV.
The TV’s not mine, I reflect as the somewhat comforting noise fills the room. Practically nothing in here is. If I break up with him, everything’s going to be really empty for a while… Not that I’ll have leisure for TV, since I’ll have to go full-time just to pay rent. I probably won’t eat for a while, too.
I close my eyes and frown. Is that why I’m still here? Because I’m too fucking lazy not to keep leading him on if it means more work for me? Am I that big a half-assing jerk? That’d make me way worse than he is. He doesn’t deserve that…
The first commercial break makes me wonder suddenly what the hell I’m doing, and I flip to my marketing notes. I don’t take very good notes; I need the book. This is probably why, after several minutes, my attention drifts again.
Why’d he stab me, anyway? Was he there specifically to stab me, or was he just mad that I didn’t want to buy anything? Deranged door-to-door salesman… perfect… And why didn’t he kill me, then? I was obviously still alive to see the thing with the red-head, who it seems like he did intend to kill… why him and not me? Did he need me alive for something? Why through my shoulder like that? Why would he go to the trouble of kicking me around so badly, but not kill me, when he’s evidently Mr. Super Violent?
More importantly, why am I not studying?
I look to my notebook again.
He gets home after I’ve been following this pattern for a few frustrating hours without ever going out to get the textbook, and, given the prevalent topics of the day, I’m only half glad for the distraction of his presence.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to turn the air conditioner up? Just hit the ‘occupied’ button.”
“Yeah, good to see you too.”
“I’m serious; is it that difficult?”
”’bout as difficult as it is for you to be nice.”
“Grouchy today?” he wonders a little testily, and neither of us says anything more for a while.
I find I can’t stop looking at him, trying to pin down the exact differences between his real face and his face in my dreams. A certain annoying-as-hell quality definitely exists in both. And he’s hot either way, but who the hell cares about that when he’s stabbing you or harassing you about the air conditioner?
Eventually, of course, he has to start again. “You drank all the milk, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, so?” I look studiously back at my notebook, but he’s got to know I’m not actually reading it.
“So, if you tell me, I can buy more before we need it.”
“What do you ‘need‘ milk for?” I ask skeptically.
“A case I’m working on,” is his very sarcastic reply. “For dinner, idiot; what do you think?”
“Well, since you’re so smart, I’m sure you can figure out something to make that doesn’t need milk.”
He snorts. “Or you could.” And he leaves the room; pretty soon I hear the shower starting. I echo his grunt and jump up to go get my book from the car finally.
I’m not sure whether I think it’s a good thing that I end up sitting awake half the night studying and then sleep so hard there’s no room for dreams. Do I want more dreams? Do I really believe they’ve got some deeper meaning, that I’m going to find some answer in them? Or do I want them to stop? Do I think they’re getting in my way, clouding the issue, that I need to make up my own mind without this weirdness? Oh, give me a break. I don’t have time for this; I’ve got a test today.
It doesn’t go too badly, considering. Well, OK, it goes badly. But I don’t have to find out exactly how badly until next week, and then there are other tests this semester to make up for it. I try not to think about it. Not too difficult, when I’ve got plenty else to keep my mind off it. A little too much, really. I’m not the most gung-ho student ever, but this is getting annoying. They’re just dreams, probably induced — oh, yeah, why didn’t I think of this before? — induced by the stress of indecision about leaving my boyfriend.
I experience an almost-tangible wave of relief as this occurs to me. Of course there’s no secret, no message… it’s natural to have unpleasant dreams about him at this stage, right? It makes me feel so much better, that thought… for about two seconds, before some stupid voice in my head answers, Not in Chinese, it’s not. Not with swords and blood and shit. That’s not normal at all.
So I keep going back and forth between thinking the dreams mean something and that they don’t… that they’re the cause of my anxiety and that they’re just caused by it… and the point I keep coming back to is the language thing. Two dreams in a row in a coherent-sounding language I don’t speak has to mean something. But what the hell is that?
If I take any notes this whole day, they’re going to be hilarious to reread when this is all over… a painful, I’m-going-to-fail-all-my-Wednesday-classes funny.
My homework efforts this evening are just as laughable. Too bad I’m not laughing.
I give up the attempt when he gets home, but he’s late and tired and I’m grouchy… and, rather than argue again — though I remembered to hit the stupid ‘occupied’ button this time and he’s bought more milk — we’re quiet for the rest of the evening. More quiet than usual, actually, for after such a little argument. I mean, we fight all the time, and usually we’ve forgotten it the next day, unless we need make-up sex (which is pretty much always). But tonight we end up in bed with the lights off and no indication of wanting to do anything more than sleep. Is this because of my indecision, or it is the natural death of a relationship that was never meant to be?
I’m almost nervous as I close my eyes, and, probably because of that, it takes me a while to fall asleep. Then I’m standing very suddenly in a narrow street. It’s got the same type of look as the last place, just a lot shabbier. There’s an intermittent hot breeze, and by the smell carried on it, this neighborhood is every bit as run-down as it looks. I feel incredibly tense; I’m staring steadily, angrily in front of me… I guess I came into this one late too.
Barely a yard away, he’s facing me with a somewhat annoyed expression, and saying severely, “抜刀斎 に とって お前等 の 存在 など 弱点 以外 の 何でも ないんだ.”
For some reason, these words come as a painful shock, and for a moment I can’t make any reply. I don’t know who Battousai is or why I care so much what he thinks of me, but evidently it hurts to have this pointed out. He goes on, but I barely hear any of his harsh explanation and remonstrance. I’m shaking, breathing hard, battling a huge wave of anger.
I find, though, as I begin to speak, that I sound a good deal calmer than I really feel. “そう か… 俺 は 剣心 の 弱点 で… 守り きれない から あいつ は 独り で 旅立った って 訳 か…” Again with this Kenshin person who seems to be the center of this issue… that red-haired guy… who left me behind… and my stabbing boyfriend here agrees with that decision. My attempts at staying calm failing utterly at this thought, rage explodes through my chest as I clench my fists and shift toward him. “それ を 聞いて 尚更 あいつ を ブン 殴りたく なったぜ!””
He looks like he expected this, and says nothing.
“どけ 斎籐!” I order him angrily. “どかなきゃ, 力ずくで いくぞ!” Of course I’m not going to put up with this type of treatment; I’ll make him get out of my way.
“その 言葉… そっくり 返すぜ,” he replies grimly, tossing my threat right back at me. But I’m not afraid of him — actually, considering what he did to me last time we ‘fought,’ I’m probably a little too not afraid of him — and I’m racing at him, ready to do battle.
He doesn’t take the hit this time, but dodges almost faster than I can see. With a disdainful expression, he grabs me by the sleeve of the weird black-and-white thing I’m wearing, and punches me in the armpit. It must be not too long after the stabbing, because my shoulder’s obviously not healed yet. This Holmesian deduction that puts the scene into better perspective doesn’t do much to distract me from the sensation of shit tearing that’s really better off in one piece, blood gushing abruptly, and my whole body suddenly flying through the air as he throws me.
I slam into the ground with a pained grunt. A voice I don’t recognize is yelling something about that not being fair, but with the wind knocked out of me and my shoulder reopened I’m not in any condition to state my agreement. A moment later as his shadow looms over me and one of his heels slams unexpectedly down into the aforementioned shoulder, I’m not in any condition to do much more than scream.
He waits until I’m good and recovered from that shock — or at least have stopped screaming and can listen to him — before starting to explain why he won’t leave my damn shoulder the hell alone. The other voice (which, I finally recognize indistinctly, belongs to one of the people who were watching the fight with that Kenshin dude) is arguing the point. I override them both as I struggle to my feet. “痛かねエ…”
Oh, look at that — he’s surprised. He didn’t think I could still get up. He thought his point was made. Ha. Still, if I’m not mistaken, I just claimed this wound doesn’t hurt. I know I’m all for bravado, but, uh, it does hurt. Like hell, actually. But then I go on to explain that something having to do with Kenshin hurts a thousand times more, and I guess that makes sense… I may not have much idea what’s going on here, but I can damn well feel all this emotional turmoil. Using the latter to power my movement, I charge him again, and this punch connects hard.
Looking startled, he blocks it, but is still knocked backward. “Out of the way, Saitou!” I command again. “I’m going to Kyoto! 京都 で 俺 が ヤツ の 力 に なれるって この 拳 で あかしてやるぜ!”
“身 の 程 知らず が,” he replies tensely, almost angrily, looking me up and down. Then he puts a hand to his chin and says with grim thoughtfulness, “よく 言うぜ この 前 は 俺 に ボロ負けしたくせして.”
This makes me so irate I want to rip his throat out, but the sight of him removing his sword from his belt and tossing it aside calms me. Is it possible he’s going to take me a little more seriously now? But then, “So you won’t have any excuse about me having a sword,” he says, pretty much disproving that theory. “This fight will be on your terms — 拳 の 勝負 だ.”
I’ve noticed this blue outfit he’s got on, with the way the jacket-thing’s shaped, still kinda looks like he’s wearing a skirt. A mini-skirt this time. Too bad I’m too busy being pissed at him and preparing to get my ass kicked again to make fun of it.
He has a brief exchange with the kid, who’s trying to warn me about something, but I’m not really listening. I’m watching his hands as he gets ready to fight me. But as he finishes with, “No matter how stupid he is, he’ll understand how weak he is when I beat him at his own game,” I can’t help paying attention to his words.
I’m angry as all hell, but I think being about to fight helps me control it better (because I know I’m about to let it all out?) “Interesting,” is all I say through my clenched teeth, then slam my fists together and hurl myself at him with a growl.
Scornfully, and in a motion that looks almost slow compared to my wild rush, he blocks. Apparently exasperated, he opens his mouth, doubtless to tell me why that punch sucked — but I’ve got more up my sleeve this time. Without warning — and I think it’s a surprise to both of us — I follow up the first blow with a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth… countless more hits… I just don’t stop, my arms working like machinery, and there’s no way he’s blocking all of them… What a good idea! I’m pleased with myself. As long as I don’t relent, he’ll never have a chance to hit me back, and eventually I’m sure to get enough through to take him down. Seems messy and slow, but, hell, if it works…
It’s a flurry of heat and movement and the thump of flesh-and-bone contact, and after a while, arms burning, I guess it’s OK to let off and stand back to see how it went. Looks like I’ve forced him to retreat a couple steps, and completely shredded the sleeves of his jacket… but as he straightens from his defensive stance, I can see… Shit, it doesn’t look like a single one of my million or so punches actually connected with his body. What the fuck? Ruined sleeves shows what nice forearms he’s got, sure, but if that was the only effect of my great attack, even I have to admit it was a waste of energy. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say about it.
“Finished?” he asks in that infuriating tone, advancing. He raises his gloved hands, and…
I needed more pain today, right? I needed fists like iron slamming into my face and chest over and over and over, right? It’s another unintelligible flurry of motion and impact, this time with a lot more hurting mixed in, as he returns my attack — only it works for him. Why the hell am I not blocking?
A jarring blow to the jaw knocks me right off my feet, and I barely feel myself falling to the ground through the stunning tremors from the hit. I’m definitely tasting blood, and the image of him standing over me wavers slightly. I find I’m not yet able to move.
“Do you understand?” he demands, then, ironically, adds, “お前 は 俺 や 抜刀 には実力斎 も 経験 ありと あらゆる 面で 遠く 及ばない. 俺達 から すれば お前 など 口 うるさい だけ の ヒョッコ過ぎん.”
During this little speech I’ve mostly regained my mobility, though my voice still sounds slurred as I shout, “Shut up! So what?” I force myself up, feeling unsteady, planting my feet firmly apart to keep my balance. “I’m going to Kyoto no matter what anyone says!” But I find even as I make the defiant statement that, though I’m standing, my ability to do just about anything else is not great. As a matter of fact, I may fall over again if I even try.
He’s evidently aware of this, and knows I know. As he draws back, stretching his right arm out and holding his left fist tight at his side, he says in a tone of grim command, “You cannot go to Kyoto.”
I don’t need the noisy kid’s warning to recognize the danger I’m in. The stance reminds me of the one he used to stab me before; he’s like clockwork, wound up tight and ready to strike. Problem is, I don’t think there’s really much I can do to avoid taking this hit. So like him to save his worst attack for after he’s already worn me out.
“No matter how hard you try,” he tells me disdainfully, then finishes as he begins his charge, “you’re still nothing more than an amateur!”
In the next flashing instant I seem to be concentrating on three things at once: trying to roll with his incredibly painful blow, avoiding getting knocked off my feet again, and doing something with my arms. It only takes a moment to find out what the latter is, even with the blood now running down my face and hazing across my eyes: I’ve caught his arm, as he drew it back, between my fists, and am applying what has to be an uncomfortable amount of pressure.
He looks unpleasantly shocked, and I feel a rush of satisfaction as I growl, “Your arm could have been broken by an amateur — how does that feel?”
“きさま…” But he doesn’t go on. I guess he’s actually going to hear me out.
“You’ve been having fun with your ‘amateur, amateur…'” I continue, drawing closer to him but not loosening my hold on his arm. “Maybe you and Kenshin are stronger than me, but you didn’t start out that way. Maybe I didn’t fight in the Bakumatsu ten years ago, or help build the Meiji era… Maybe I am an amateur, but that doesn’t mean I’m weak.”
It seems for half a moment like he’s contemplating my words, but before I can even begin to hope, he just makes a contemptuous sound and punches me across the face with his free hand. Which, now that I think about it, kinda is the tactical drawback to pinning one of his arms with both of mine.
“Bastard!” I shout at him as he moves to walk away.
Without pausing he replies, “I’m finished with you.”
“What?!” I demand, incensed.
“Trying to keep an idiot from doing idiotic things is a waste of time. Go to Kyoto if you want. You’ll die soon enough.”
“何イ?!?” I cry, even more furious than before.
He turns briefly to look back at me. “Any moron who relies on his current strength with no thought of defense can’t possibly survive very long.” Then he keeps walking.
I wake up with what sounds like a growl to find myself tense in a tightly wound sheet. However much I must have moved to get it so twisted up, I don’t seem to have bothered him; he’s got his back to me and the entire blanket.
I find I’m still pissed. He didn’t think I was good enough for whatever was about to go down in Kyoto, wherever the hell that is. I don’t know why I wanted to help with whatever it is at all, considering he stabbed me in the shoulder, and I don’t know anything about this Kenshin person, but obviously the whole thing meant a lot to me, so why did he have to be such an asshole about it? It seems so typical, though…
OK, this has to be some kind of warning message. Why else would I dream about him kicking my ass repeatedly just now when I’m wondering whether to leave him? He’s never hit me or anything — well, not seriously like in the dreams, and definitely not with a sword — but imagining him getting abusive isn’t too hard, even if the idea does kinda bug me.
As I struggle to escape the sheets, some of the grunts escaping my lips sound like curses against him, and I’m not quite sure they’re not. Finally free, lying still at last, I stare at his back and wonder. How many days can it possibly take me to make up my mind or work up my nerve or whatever? I mean, why am I still here? My reasons for being with him are stupid, he’s not a nice guy, and my subconscious seems to have an even bigger problem with him than my conscious. But here I am…
Maybe it’s just that I’m not quite sure how to do it. Not that I think he’ll be heartbroken or anything — yeah, right! — but what the hell exactly do I say? ‘Hey, man, we gotta break up because I’m just a horny gold-digger and I dream about you beating me up in Korean or something?’
I sigh and bury my face in the pillow.
It doesn’t even really strike me until I’ve lain still for a while trying not to think about it that I understood a good half of the dialogue in that one. The words were still… whatever language… but it wasn’t a problem for me any more. It felt so natural at the time, it didn’t seem at all strange to be slipping into comprehension… but it sure doesn’t clear up the issue. Yeah, I know a bit more about what’s going on in dreamland, but what does that imply here? My first thought would be that my brain is starting to make sense of its own nonsense… but that would have to mean I’m getting closer to some kind of real understanding — and I certainly don’t feel even the beginnings of enlightenment.
It takes a while to get back to sleep, and then thankfully I don’t have any more stupid dreams before waking up the next day. But what’s the difference at this point? Three of them is enough to mean whatever it means… that I need to leave him… that I need to stay with him… that I’m fucking stupid and don’t even understand myself…
I go to school dully and without much hope of getting any higher education out of the day. The phrase ‘going through the motions’ comes to mind… an expression that’s often used, coincidentally, to describe failing relationships. Perfect. And for some reason, “No matter how stupid he is, he’ll understand how weak he is when I beat him at his own game,” keeps echoing through my head. The anger comes and goes, but mostly the day is just apathetic.
A new idea occurs to me when a psychology class empties into my hallway as I’m heading for the shuttle back to the parking lot. I’ve never thought about it before, but we’ve got to have some kind of psychology therapy counsely person on campus somewhere. Don’t most schools have those? And wouldn’t that person maybe be able to interpret my dreams for me? That’s what they’re there for, right? Assuming they’re there at all? They could help with the stupid dreams and the stupid big question.
Or would I just get handed off and become an unwitting contributor to some psychiatry major’s thesis?
No, I’m not even remotely distrustful and bitter about this place because of how much they charge me for the privilege of doing homework and having no life.
It’s the beginnings of an idea, though, and I give it some serious thought as I drive home. But I haven’t really reached a decision by the time I get there (which is so typical of me these days, isn’t it?), because… well, going to a therapist seems so extreme. They’re just dreams. And couples break up all the time without having to see shrinks. Simultaneously, though, I remind myself that if they were really just dreams, they wouldn’t be bothering me this much… and that no breaking up has actually occurred yet, just a lot of thinking about it. And if I can’t deal with something on my own, isn’t it about time to get help?
The idea of ‘getting help,’ however, is distasteful. It suggests I really think there’s something wrong with my head that I can’t work out. And I don’t think that, do I? God, I hope not. But as I seem to hear again, “Trying to keep an idiot from doing idiotic things is a waste of time,” and feel the same rush of anger in response as I did then, I grab the phone book.
Staring at the list of doctor names and numbers, running my finger absently over them again and again, I wonder if I’m really going to do this. Am I overreacting? I’m really just a very normal person who’s had a couple of abnormal dreams coinciding with a difficult decision, that’s all. Do I really need therapy? What if they want to give me drugs? Despite my misgivings, I’m drifting toward the phone. If I call, they’ll probably want me to schedule an appointment. Then if I change my mind later, I can just not show up. This isn’t a commitment to being crazy; I’m just testing the water. I pick up the receiver.
What meets my ear is the manic-sounding quick tone that means there’s a voicemail. Without even thinking, I dial in to listen to it.
“I’m going to be working late.” He always sounds so brusque on the phone… “There’s some cash on the dresser.” You’d never guess it was his boyfriend he was calling… “You can order pizza for dinner, and make sure to put what’s left in the fridge.”
I delete the message, hang up the phone, and go flop down on the couch. ‘Working late’ means ‘working really late,’ usually because of something exciting and dangerous, or at least some important development in some case. He’s got a pretty cool job.
Idly I wonder how he would react if he came home late after tracking down and arresting and processing some serial killer and found me and all my stuff gone. It’s actually a really disturbing scenario. No matter what I end up choosing, I won’t do it that way. He’ll know, and he’ll know why. Which brings me back to the question of what I am going to choose.
I don’t call a therapist.
After some pizza that isn’t nearly as exciting as pizza usually is and should always be, I head to bed. Yes, I remember to put the leftovers in the fridge. No, I haven’t touched a textbook since I got home from class. Yes, I’m going to regret that another day.
There’s no way I’ll fall asleep quickly. I’m not tired — hell, what-all have I done today? — and I’m sincerely nervous about having another dream, and hours pass with me tossing and turning and thinking almost nothing, never allowing myself to relax. When he finally gets home and moves quietly to get undressed and into bed in the dark, however, I force myself to breathe deeply and lie still. The last thing I want right now is a conversation.
Hmm, is that really the last thing I want? Is discussing whatever we would end up talking about really worse than getting beaten up by him once I’m asleep?
Now I’m almost tempted to speak.
Obviously, I don’t. And forcing myself to relax makes a difference. I don’t even realize for a while that I’m back there again until a chill starts settling over me and I notice that I’m seated on a hard surface rather than lying in bed. I open my eyes.
It looks like a jail cell. How the hell I got myself into jail I don’t know, but it kinda makes sense given how much violence I seem to be part of around here. I’m sure it has something to do with him, too.
As if in response to this thought, he appears. Well, I don’t see him just yet, but a door opens somewhere off to my left and I can suddenly hear him talking to someone else as they move in my direction. I get the feeling he doesn’t have any idea at all that I’m here, so I’m almost kinda looking forward to the moment he gets to my cell and sees me.
There he is now, walking alongside some short guy with a mustache and the same uniform he always wears. Guy’s talking about me, which seems like a good cue to jump into the conversation.
“Just like I thought,” I say loudly, triumphantly. “Instead of stumbling around in the dark, I made some trouble for the police so I could find you. Seemed like the quickest way of finding Kenshin.”
“You…” He only glances over his shoulder briefly, but I’m pretty sure he’s both surprised and displeased to see me here.
“おうよ,” I grin around what seems to be a feather or something in my mouth. “Sagara Sanosuke’s magnificent arrival in Kyoto.” After a moment’s pause, as he turns more fully toward me, still silent, I add thoughtfully, “Well, it was a gamble, actually… I didn’t know whether you’d come to Kyoto yourself or not. When I thought about it, I couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t just sic Kenshin on him and stand back.”
He still doesn’t say a word, so I get up and advance on the bars. “You could look a little happier to see me. I did do some training along that damn Nakasendou. Actually, I got pushed a lot farther than I needed to go by this one guy, just because I got lost…” It seems like I’m rambling, but my follow-up is more to the point. “Anyway, Saitou, I’m gonna show you the results of my training!”
The short dude asks Saitou if he knows me. “いえ, 全く,” he replies, and, turning, they both start to walk away.
“Hey!” I bellow, watching them through the bars. “Wait just a second, you!”
“It’s easy to mistake people when you’re angry,” he says. “He’s in the way, so just leave him down here for a while.”
Oh, I am so not going to take that. “Running away, you bastard?!” I demand at the top of my lungs. “Open this door or I’ll open it myself! Do you hear me?!” And when he only barely glances back before continuing down the hall, I actually do it.
Wow. Holy shit. I just totally trashed that thing! I punched it, but it wasn’t a normal punch… the wood’s half turned to sawdusty powder all over the floor, and the other pieces are splintered and small. And I did it. With my hand. I’m… I’m fucking awesome!! Guess I really did do some training on the damn Whatever-it-was. This’ll show him! It’s got to. Hell, that was so cool, I missed whatever I just said.
He watches me for a moment, then, “Chief, I will deal with this,” he tells the little fat guy (who’s not looking happy). “Please wait for me upstairs.” Notice he’s never that polite to me. Of course, I probably wouldn’t really like it if he was.
Once the other dude’s gone, he starts stalking toward me with this dark and very pointed stare. And I have to admit, even when I’m annoyed as hell at him for pretending not to know me and trying to walk away, he looks pretty hot like that. He also looks like he might want to kick my ass again. This is apparently what I want too, given what I’m saying to him: “I’ve got a lot of things I want to ask you, but first we settle the fight we started in Tokyo!” Why do I have the feeling this is going to hurt again?
Except that he’s not paying attention to me.
How is he not paying attention to me?!
“コラア!!”
He kneels down and examines the wreckage of the door, speculatively analyzing the technique. Which, I guess, is better than ignoring me completely. Except he doesn’t seem to be impressed by it at all. How the hell can he not be impressed?!?
Suddenly he stands and looks over at me. And although it’s a fixed gaze, I can’t help thinking he seems rather indifferent. Tired. “And what about the basics of defense I told you to practice?”
I shrug, grinning. Even from the inside I can tell it looks stupid, and he certainly isn’t pleased with me. Annoyed, he grabs the edges of my shirt and drags me toward him… but he doesn’t have words, apparently, for his frustration, so I speak instead, angry again: “Since when do I have to do what you tell me?” Dislodging his hand from my lapels or whatever they are, I continue, “Defense just isn’t my thing! I’ll fight my own way!”
He gives his hand a little shake, as if to get rid of the sensation of touching me, makes an exasperated sound, and turns away. “I don’t have any men to spare, but even so, you’re useless to me.”
I stare after him, fists clenching. “You’re running away again!”
“I’m very busy; I don’t have time to play with you.”
Frustrated but trying hard to keep my tone fairly casual, I take a deep breath and answer loudly, “Well, then, I guess it’s my win by default.”
“If that’s what you want to think,” he replies indifferently, not even slowing.
I think it’s the surge of pure rage at this behavior that jolts me to consciousness this time. Though I can’t even begin to piece together what the hell is happening in these dreams, one thing I’m sure of: he never takes me seriously, he never thinks I’m good enough for this big project of his. Seems like I’d even gotten stronger — which is kinda cool, especially since it felt like I was pretty damn strong before — and he still totally blew me off.
Of course, it doesn’t seem like we’re exactly lovers in this little sword story, so he’s not under quite so much obligation to take me seriously.
But half the time, he doesn’t take me seriously in real life either.
Shit, this is so messed up. Dreams are not something you base important, relationship-altering decisions on. At least they shouldn’t be… but these ones of mine are getting to that point…
I can’t stop thinking about it now. Not at home or school or anywhere. In fact, I skip my first class of the day to go to the computer lab and try to find some of the words I’m picking up. This isn’t all that educational, though, except to confirm that it’s Japanese. Whatever that should mean to me. Did I watch some movie in Japanese at some point and store away all these words in my subconscious or something? Because there’s just no way my brain’s coming up with all of this on its own… unless I’m really going crazy.
Yeah. Maybe he’s driving me crazy.
With this thought I start wandering around campus without much intention of going to any of my classes… and possibly no intention of going home, either. Home? Shit.
Maybe it’s about time I discussed this with someone else. Not a shrink, like I was thinking yesterday; that idea’s definitely out of the question now, though I’m not even sure why. But what are friends for, other than paying for dinner and driving you home when you’re drunk?
Once in the car out on the street, though, my confidence in that idea drains away. I’m still heading in the general direction of the place where a couple of my pals live, but I’m changing lanes at random and taking what could be considered the scenic route. Because none of my friends like him, but at the same time they’re all way pro-relationship in general… it’d be impossible to get an unbiased answer out of any of them, and no way in hell am I bringing up the dreams. What am I expecting to say or to hear? And what do I think I’m going to make of it? I know perfectly well I’m too hard-headed to take advice anyway.
Which is a really bad thing, I realize, if the dreams are some form of advice, whether from my subconscious or from the mystic ethereal lands of whatever.
I end up driving aimlessly for a long time. Briefly I play with the idea of just continuing to drive and seeing where I end up, but I don’t live in a movie where I’d coincidentally run into exactly what I needed to fix the situation at a little gas station twenty miles outside of town. I’ve got things to do and a boyfriend waiting either to be dumped in a face-to-face, not-spineless way or… not. So I stick to city limits.
I skip eating; contrary to the impulse that set me driving in the first place, I’m not in the mood to talk to people, and the process of ordering food seems overly complicated and not worth the trouble.
The best part of all this is that it’s not helping. I’m not resolving issues or comparing pros and cons… I’m just driving endlessly, wasting gas, my mind almost entirely blank, annoying myself with oldies on the radio again for some reason (though the instant some pansy ass starts crooning, Whenever I want you, all I have to do is dream, dream, dream, dream, I turn the damn thing off). The occasional fleeting thought that has a shred of meaning is usually just a retread of everything that’s been bothering me all along, and what’s that going to accomplish?
And yet I don’t go home until it’s way later than I ever get home without letting him know where I am. Which seems blatantly rude considering just yesterday he let me know where he was when he was going to be home late… but it’s done now. The apartment’s dark; evidently he didn’t wait up for me.
It’s too much to hope that I can sneak into bed without disturbing him, since he’s such a light sleeper, but I do my best. He doesn’t sit up or even move as he asks, “Where have you been?” His tone is pretty neutral, but I get the feeling he wasn’t even asleep.
“Out.” I don’t snap it, but a one-syllable answer is always going to sound a little tetchy.
“That much I had noticed,” he replies dryly.
Since that’s not a question, I decide I’m not required to respond, and just settle into my place in the bed and close my eyes.
“Hey,” he says after a moment. Great, now he’s going to demand I tell him.
“Yeah?”
“Are you OK?”
He’s… Dammit, I’m just not sure… Of course he’s noticed something’s going on with me; he’s not stupid… he’s probably even guessed what I’m trying to decide… and he’s not a complete jerk… I just don’t… I don’t know.
“Yeah,” I lie.
It’s a thick silence, like he wants to say something else, but eventually it’s clear he’s decided not to. We go to sleep with our backs to each other.
Next morning I’m thinking maybe it was my increased uncertainty and discomfort caused by this brief exchange that brought on a dream with a slightly different focus. It wasn’t so much that he was an overt asshole this time… just that he was still undervaluing me. I blew up an entire fucking battleship singlehandedly, by being awesome, and kept from getting shot in the process, and he still didn’t have a word to say to me. I would say it’s like I don’t exist, but I sure as hell seem to when he wants to beat someone up.
So I’m angry again; seems I’m always waking up angry now. I’m getting into this way too much. As real as it all feels, and as much continuity as I’ve come up with, they’re just dreams, right? These people Saitou and Sanosuke, they’re not him and me, and we don’t live in Japan, and none of this has anything to do with our relationship. Just because I’ve got some fixation with impressing him — I mean, just because Sano has some fixation with impressing Saitou in my dreams — doesn’t make any difference in my real life… right?
I don’t even go anywhere at all today. Normally Saturday is a time for me to sleep in (more than usual), lounge around for a while, then go do stupid shit and find my friends… but what’s the point? I’d just be moody and annoying, and it’s about time to make up my mind once and for all anyway. If I’m staying with him, I need a good reason why. If I’m leaving him, I need to do it, stop leading him on and driving myself crazy. I need to figure out what these dreams mean, what they’re telling me. If anything.
First I lie on the bed and then the couch, watching sunlight creep through the apartment through open blinds. Then I eat something… not sure what… Eventually I find a deck of cards somewhere and deal myself a game of solitaire, or maybe more than one… I don’t know. I’m not paying attention to what I’m doing, but at the same time my thoughts are just going around and around and not accomplishing much either, like yesterday. What does he really mean to me? What do I mean to him? Am I brave enough to go? Or do I want to stay and I’m just being childish? And where in all this mess do the fucking dreams come in?
It’s inevitable that, spending so much time doing jack, I’m going to fall asleep at some point. At multiple points, actually, though they’re really just cat-naps. Long enough, though, for a broken string of brief images to hound me through the day:
Him and me talking as we walk up some steep path under these red arches in some mountain forest. He’s calling me an idiot again, of course.
Him volunteering to take my place as I fight some big guy in kinda gothy makeup. Obviously he still doesn’t think I’m good enough, and I’m surprised he cares whether I get my ass pounded.
Him getting ready to fight some weirdo in a blindfold while I run off, picking up some woman (oddly enough) and carrying her away before I throw a look back at him. I’m worried about him.
Yeah, so it all makes even less sense than before, but I’ve given up trying to follow the story, if there is one. The point, again and again and again, is that he doesn’t think I’m worth anything, but even so I…
Well. I don’t know. Or maybe I do know and I’m just denying it.
He’s quiet and thoughtful this evening — worried, I think, probably about something at work connected with what kept him late the other day. Normally I would ask, but right now I’ve got my own concerns. We don’t really say much of anything, actually, and dinner is quiet and a little awkward. Then we watch TV for a while in continued silence.
After the news, we both get up to go to bed as if we’ve discussed it. I feel dull, and as if physical stuff like what I’m wearing to sleep just doesn’t matter at all… and he probably gets the wrong idea from me sitting down on the bed in nothing but boxers, because the next second he’s leaning against me, mouthing my shoulder and running hands around to my chest.
I fight off a shudder, trying hard not to show how much I’d like to… because I really don’t need this right now. Pushing his hands away, I say a little stiffly, “I don’t feel like it.”
He pulls his arms back immediately. “Fine.” Considering I’ve not once ever ‘not felt like it,’ I actually expected more of a reaction than that neutral tone, but not having to explain is a good thing. I lie down with my back to him and return to my thoughts.
Tomorrow is his day off, and of course I have no classes on Sundays. Normally when our days off coincide, we find something fun to do, and I’m wondering… would one last day and night together be a nice parting gift, or just leading him on more? I guess it depends on how much I really think he likes me. Which, when it comes down to it, I’m just not sure about. And maybe I’m only finding excuses to stay. Because, when it comes down to that, I don’t think I’ve even really made up my mind yet.
This isn’t the best mood or train of thought for falling asleep, but eventually I’m as worn out fussing about it as I would have been if I hadn’t stopped him, though not as pleasantly, and I slip uncomfortably off.
The scene I come into smells like shit and doesn’t feel much better. I could say it’s nice to get here after the ass-beating for once, but actually I find I prefer to know where all this raging pain came from before I experience it. As it is, it takes me a bit to focus on anything else — but eventually I do become aware that we’re standing on a stone bridge overlooking… I’m not sure… napalm or something… a canyon, I guess, filled with fire and billowing, rancid smoke.
I’m holding the Kenshin guy, who’s unconscious and, wow, he’s so short… Nearby is some sad-looking dude in a glowing trench-coat, and on my other side, of course, is Saitou. He’s… he’s hurt pretty bad, it looks like… bleeding heavily all over his chest and both his legs. Somehow I don’t think I did that to him, so it’s a fair guess I look about ten times worse. Of course, I don’t really have any idea what I look like at all around here.
I know what I sound like, though, and I think it’s the remains of my desperate annoyance echoing in the air as we stare at a giant pair of heavy-looking metal doors starkly closed in front of us. There’s a feeling here like everything’s almost over; I think the battle’s been fought and all we have left to do is get the hell out, which probably means getting through these things. Seems ample cause for frustration.
“Out of the way.” Rude as always, even when we’re all dying. But I shift aside to let him pass, noticing as I do so that he’s drawn his sword.
“Hey, you’re wounded too,” I object. It makes sense he’s almost as bad-off as Kenshin: he was pretty much in charge of this whole thing, I think, and he’s too dedicated to just let someone else do the hard work. But what is he up to now?
I don’t seem to be nearly as surprised as I should be to see him charging at the doors in that silly-looking attack position of his. There’s no way he’s going to be able to…
Well, I guess there is.
Wait, I took one of those to the shoulder? What the hell am I made of?!
He stands back in this kind of ‘after you’ gesture, satisfied with the jagged hole he just created as an escape route. Hell, I’d be pleased with myself too. I can’t help but notice, though, that the blood seeping through the bandages on his legs has increased quite a bit, and his face looks grim. But all he says, I guess in response to my protest of a moment ago, is, “I’ve gotten through more of these situations than you have.”
And then shit starts happening fast. As everything begins rumbling so violently it’s almost difficult to keep my feet, I glance back and see that some building thing behind us — sticking out of the opposite canyon wall or something — is starting to explode in places with loud booms and bursts of fire. Fire is likewise flaring around us from below, and in the next instant a huge pillar of it roars up just in front of me, right through the stone I’m standing on, scorching my hair (I think) and making my sudden gasp burn all the way down my throat into my lungs. Then in an instant it dies down again.
Panic leaps up inside me with the explosion just as abruptly, and is quelled just as quickly with its dissipation; it’s replaced by a very sharp sense of relief when I see he’s OK… if you can call it ‘OK’ when a twenty-foot gap has been blown through the bridge and he’s on the other side. “Sa- Saitou!” I call out to him, aghast.
“How annoying.” He isn’t shouting back exactly, but purposely says it loud enough for me to hear over here, I’m sure of it. Then, casually as if he’s not standing on the edge of a hundred foot drop into a fucking inferno, he pulls out matches and cigarettes and lights one. He lifts his eyes again, looking us over in that damn calculating way… and a moment later, starts to turn.
I can feel my eyes widening, my heart-rate increasing until I think my chest must burst, my breaths coming short, hot, and angry. Where does he think he’s going? There’s no way he can survive over there! “Saitou!” I’m screaming, and I can easily hear the internal desperation leaking through into my voice. “You bastard, are you trying to run out while you’re still ahead? Saitou!! What about our fight? Answer me!!”
What is wrong with me?! ‘What about our fight?’ What the hell kind of question is that? Can’t I think of anything else to bring him back here, get him to try to save himself?
“As I just told you,” he says, turning again and sucking on his cigarette as he glances back right at me, “I’ve gotten through more of these situations than you have…” His lips curl into that derisive smile as the cigarette leaves them and he adds decisively, “…idiot.” Then he walks away into a rising chaos of flame, rubble, and smoke as more of the world falls apart, explodes inescapably — most pointedly the place where he was standing just moments ago.
The sound of my own voice screaming his name as if I were the one dying is, I think, what wakes me up.
I’m struggling hard. I don’t remember for a couple seconds that it was just a dream, that nobody’s died, that I don’t need to save anyone. He’s holding onto me tight even though I was probably kicking him, and the room feels uncomfortably hot. Still, as soon as I’m awake enough to stop struggling, I cling to him, trying to calm down. I can’t get the images out of my head; my heart is pounding, and I don’t want him to let go.
“These dreams of yours are getting out of hand, it seems.”
Trying not to seem so childish and out of control, I attempt to laugh it off, but it comes out shaky and weak. I’m planning on asking whether he’s been wakened up and bothered by all my weird dreams lately, or at least something comparably reasonable, I really am… but I find as I bury my face in his chest, the only words that come out of my mouth are, “I love you. I love you, and I’m not going to leave you.”
A startled silence falls over us, interrupted by my rasping breaths against his skin.
“I’m… glad to hear it,” he finally says.
“Are you?” I ask shakily. I’m glad to hear it too. Guess I’ve got my answers.
“You were thinking about it, weren’t you?”
“Only because I’m an idiot.”
After that we just hold each other for a while; I’m calming down and adjusting to the heat in the room, which I think may actually be more internal than anything else — remembered heat from that platform thing. Finally I’m relatively rational, and with a deep breath I speak again as if there hasn’t been a lengthy silence between statements. “You and me, we’re… we’re not in a good place. We both have things we need to change about ourselves and the way we treat each other.”
After a pause not quite as long as the previous, but still taut and anticipatory in the warm darkness, he says, “I agree.”
The clutching of my arms around him intensifies as I declare with a strength of purpose, almost a desperation, that surprises even me, “But I think it’s worth trying to get right.” I stop myself just short of admitting that the idea of losing him, of letting go of what we have or could have without even attempting to fix it, is horrifying beyond endurance — a dramatic avowal that, even in this intimate, accepting atmosphere, might get me laughed at a little.
He returns the tightening of embrace, and, with an intensity to match mine, repeats, “I agree.” And he presses a kiss to my temple before we both loosen our grip in order to lie more comfortably. “In the morning,” he goes on more levelly, “I’ll make you a mushroom omelet and we can talk about it.”
“Thank you,” I whisper — and my gratitude relates much more to his immediate willingness — earnest desire, even — to work with me on this than to his offer of my favorite breakfast. He hasn’t specifically told me he loves me back, but I think I’ve got it pretty much figured out now. Closing my eyes, I bury my face in his chest. I’m exhausted, as if I really did just fight a major battle. And escape from the fiery fortress really is in view: I feel I can rest properly, dreamless and optimistic in his arms, now I know he’s going to try to save himself. Now I know we’re going to try to save us.
As I’m falling back toward sleep, however, he pulls me out, briefly, with a quiet statement: “I do have one question right now, though.”
“Hmm?”
“Who the hell is Saitou?”
I chuckle just as quietly against the soft cloth of his t-shirt, shaking my head in a nuzzling motion and grinning slightly as I reply, “It’s a long story.”
This story, which I’ve rated , was for 30_kisses theme #6 “the space between dream and reality,” and dedicated to FarStrider.
“When he said you’d gone completely mad, he wasn’t exaggerating.”
“I… wanted to talk to you,” Sano admitted, feeling foolish.
You spend most of your time talking to me. Your neighbors think you’re insane.
“Well, none of them are here right now, are they? That’s kinda the point.”
Ahou.
“Why’d you just leave the other night, anyway? Didn’t even say goodbye or anything.”
Do you think I’m at your disposal? That I have nothing better to do?
“Course not. Not like I have any real idea what you do these days, but still… you… missed what I had to say.”
Hmm, what an extraordinary pity.
Sano gave a sigh, amused and exasperated. “Well, listen now, all right? Don’t go running off, or floating off, or whatever you do at this point.”
In exchange, try not to make it too boring.
Sano chose not to respond to this jab either. “Look, what I want to tell you is…” Even without having to meet an intense golden stare while making this statement, it was difficult to spit out. “You’ve changed me. You held me to your standard while you were alive — I practically had no choice but to be a better person — and even after you were dead you wouldn’t let me throw my life away. So it’s like you saved me twice. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t get to your level. The only thing I can ever really do is wish for it and want to touch it and want…” Finally, finally he came to the point. “And want you. Not like that’s possible now, I know, but at least I want you to know… I love you. And I’d kinda like to know how you feel about me back.”
There was a very long, and to Sano very tense silence. Eventually Saitou simply remarked, Hn…
“What does that mean? Is ‘I love you’ too boring, or what?”
Maybe, when you’ve said it twice before.
“What the– you did hear me then? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Saitou had no reply.
“Any chance you could stop being an asshole and say something? Right, like you could ever stop being an asshole. Why the hell do I love you, anyway? Could you at least tell me that?”
Still no answer.
“Guess it bothers you to hear me say it, huh? Well, suck it up, bastard. I love you, I love you, I love you. You hear me?” And he flung his gaze into the sky, shaking an irate, clenched fist upward. “I love you!!”
The water was now even blacker than it had been that day, its increased darkness in some ways more enticing and in some more horrific. It stretched like a shadow, a deep endless shadow you could easily blend into… or, at least, somebody with dark hair and dark clothing could. Sano would stand out, a blemish on the water, until he sank and was entirely forgotten, not by choice but because he just wasn’t good enough.
Eventually he stirred from his motionless stare, and his limbs felt heavy and sluggish. It took more effort than it should have to haul himself up onto the railing. The water appeared even closer now, despite its being technically a few feet farther from him. He glanced around at the rest of the dark world. Why did it seem he was expecting something? Expecting someone? Expecting… Saitou… to say something… What would Saitou say?
Well, he probably wouldn’t bother trying to stop Sano, but he wouldn’t miss the opportunity to mock him. What are you doing, ahou?
“What does it look like I’m doing, old man?” Sano replied to the hypothetical question out loud.
And just what do you intend to accomplish with that?
He had no answer.
Do you think you’ll be helping anyone? Saitou would persist. Do you think the state of the world will improve? Do you think anything you’ve ever lived for will be carried out in that kind of death?
“Well, no, but…” That would be a fairly good point.
But what?
“I… don’t know…”
A typically well formulated justification.
“Pretty sure you’re dead, bastard,” Sano growled, as if Saitou could really hear it. “Why do I have to justify myself to you anyway?”
It makes no difference to me, of course. Rushing into things without thinking is what you’re best at. This will be particularly glorious — something you’re not even sure about but can’t take back once it’s done. Yes, you’ll really outdo yourself here, boy.
“You just don’t want me to come bug you in the afterlife.”
That could be.
“Well, if you still hate me so damn much, why don’t you just stop haunting me?”
For this the fictional Saitou had no answer. But suddenly, whether it was the hazily imagined conversation, the thought of Saitou actually haunting him — watching him, demanding concrete reasons for this course of action — or something else entirely, the blackness in the water below did not look nearly so enticing. Staring down, Sano’s eyes grew wide and he began to shake. That’s right… it wouldn’t help anything… it would only make things worse. What had he been thinking?
Oh, were you thinking something?
“Shut up… just shut the hell up…”
He imagined he could hear Saitou chuckling.
The state of his body, half-forgotten on the way out in his previous frame of mind, reiterated itself now as he tore himself from the bridge and threw himself toward home, and his walk turned almost to a stagger. “Goddammit,” he grumbled breathlessly, “I might as well be dead.”
Of course he would have to make further effort eventually… he did have to eat. But as he still dreaded further questioning, it was at least another day before he tried. That made it he did not know how long since he’d had any food; he couldn’t imagine how he looked to the others in the scummy little restaurant to which he eventually dragged himself… since he had no problem getting a meal on credit, it must have been either intimidating or pitiable. At any rate, he wasn’t disturbed as he ate, and his mood slowly grew less black.
He started leaning toward the ‘intimidating’ theory, however pathetic he felt, when on the way out the door he nearly ran into an incoming restaurant patron whose reaction was to yelp, jump, and scurry out of the way. Normally Sano would stop and talk to the guy — make sure he was all right, probably tease him for being twitchy, find out if he wanted to buy a drink for the ex-mercenary that had startled him so badly — but today he didn’t feel up to it, and moved on without looking back.
He’d already muttered, “I’m as scary as you, I guess,” before he even realized he was thinking of Saitou again. Still.
You’ve always been somewhat frightening, Saitou replied easily, as if he’d been expecting Sano’s remark perhaps more even than Sano had, if only because of your terrifying fashion sense…
“Hey, now,” Sano grunted, but did not continue as Saitou went on.
But I think a drug-addict river rat like that would probably jump the same way no matter who he bumped into. It could be that shy little girl from the Akabeko and he’d still probably piss himself if she surprised him.
The image of Tsubame scaring a man twice her size out of his self-control just by appearing in a doorway was unexpectedly hilarious, and the laughter it induced unexpectedly relieving. “Shit, I can just picture her face,” Sano chortled. “Tsubame…! I love you…”
His laughter stopped along with his movement and breathing.
Had he really just said that out loud?
He hadn’t meant it like that; it had merely been an expression of appreciation, albeit a stronger one than he might normally have used — his tone must have been enough to convey this — but once the words were out, he found himself frozen in place with his head spinning. Because now that he thought about it…
Now that he’d said it, couldn’t take it back, couldn’t help but think about it…
Now that he’d slipped…
“Maybe I really do,” he whispered.
He’d been anticipating ridicule for the original statement alone; in response to this addendum he didn’t know what to expect. Certainly he did not hope. It was a foolish thing to have admitted so carelessly, to have realized so late. So… late…
Suddenly he did not feel at all well.
He stood very still, waiting for Saitou’s derision.
It did not come.
His breathing returned to normal and the nausea receded gradually, yet he heard nothing but the wind. He couldn’t say that whatever cruel remark he’d been expecting was worse than this, but no response at all he simply could not deal with. “Saitou?” he queried.
Still no answer.
Sano looked slowly around. Of course he saw nothing more than he ever did… but he felt very much alone.
Saitou hadn’t heard, then. He didn’t know.
The state of his body, half-forgotten on the way out in his previous frame of mind, reiterated itself now as he tore himself from the bridge and threw himself toward home, and his walk turned almost to a stagger. “Goddammit,” he grumbled breathlessly, “I might as well be dead.”
Too weak to handle a little pain?
“Thought I told you to shut up,” Sano snarled, as if Saitou, living or otherwise, would actually do as Sano told him.
Which hurts more, came the easy tone, the pain or the truth about yourself?
“I didn’t go through with it, did I?”
You had to be talked down.
“Not like it’s totally unheard-of for someone to get suicidal.”
Yes, you’re perfectly normal… very mainstream… You help people in ways that will get them killed, you try to kill yourself and don’t know why, and you talk to dead cops.
“Guess that makes us pretty damn similar, then, since you did the same thing and did get yourself killed so you are a fucking dead cop who doesn’t seem like he’s got anything better to do than hang around talking to me!”
Nobody ever suggested I was normal.
“Ch…” Sano was home by now, and fell to his futon gratefully, dragging an arm across his eyes although there was no light in the room to block them against. He lay silent for a long time, getting his breath back and letting the trembling stop. He needed something to eat and then he would certainly be all right.
Even before Saitou wondered idly, Nothing more to say? Sano could not feel entirely alone in the room, but with his vision obscured it almost did seem the other man was actually present.
“Hey,” Sano asked in a weary and nearly indifferent tone, “are you really here?”
Of course not. When was the last time you talked to a ghost?
A little startled by the question, Sano paused in the slow act of sitting up, supported on one elbow and still half recumbent. “Not too long ago, actually…” He hauled himself up and glanced around at the empty apartment. “But I still don’t think I believe this.”
Do as you please.
“Yeah, I always do.” Sano stood and shuffled to a cupboard to see if he had any food.
You know it’s empty. You’ve checked it every day since you came home.
Sano didn’t feel like explaining that in repressing the awareness of the cupboard’s emptiness and going to look as if it might contain something, there was a pleasure, if not equal to eating, better at least than lying around realistically contemplating the lack of food in his possession. What he did say was, “Seems like it’s gonna get real crowded around here pretty quick.”
If you had a job, you could afford a bigger apartment.
“Fuck you,” Sano replied, turning toward the door to go find somewhere to freeload.
Telling his buddies the story of his wounds did not appeal to him. Katsu undoubtedly already knew about the kidnapping-related events, and talking to him about it didn’t really appeal to Sano either. Obviously the dojo was out of the question. This was going to take a little more effort than usual.
But more effort was exactly what he didn’t have to expend. For the night was different now, colder and heavier — so heavy, in fact, it seemed to weigh on Sano’s shoulders and slow his steps until walking became useless for as far as it was likely to get him before he inevitably collapsed. He felt suddenly very weak. Weak in more ways than he’d often worried about in all his energetic days.
The sky looked like the water had: black and ready to swallow everything. He faltered to a complete halt as he stared up. There was a feeling of grasping emptiness to it that matched his soul, or perhaps it was just that the coldness of his frame and the coldness of the stars seemed to be one and the same. And he was still in pain.
Even if he wanted to ignore certain conclusions, wanted to forget certain emotions, the wounds would not let him… so he gave up, gave in, and started to ponder the last few weeks: the news, the coincidence, his own decisions, the bridge… Had Saitou actually had some hand in those events? Had he actually shown up, just at the right time in the right place to keep Sano from suicide? Was he still here, still near Sano, even now?
It didn’t really matter.
“Thank you,” Sano told the man, wherever and whatever he was, in a gruff murmur, forcing his gaze now toward the ground rather than that disturbing sky. Then, almost as if he couldn’t contain the words, he added, “You know, I don’t really hate you. I never did.”
There was no answer.
He stumbled back home.
Of course he would have to make further effort eventually… he did have to eat.
If Saitou were here, he would ask why Sano had done it. But it wouldn’t mean quite the same thing coming from him.
This was Sano’s first coherent thought, though Sano himself was far from coherent. It seemed too much of an effort to struggle for real consciousness, and he didn’t mind how disordered and incohesive was the parade of images marching past his mind’s eye, the play of sounds that did not always match.
Kenshin, solemn and quiet, telling him the news. There was no ambiguity this time. There could be no mistaking the matter. There was no misunderstanding, misinformation, or misinterpretation. Kenshin had seen the body.
His head hurt so much. Someone was talking, but he couldn’t quite hear any words just yet.
Footsteps, swift and urgent, coming his direction. They pounded across the bridge on which he stood. He looked up.
“…boy and his fiance were killed…” There were the words at last, still a bit distorted.
He’d been the only one Kenshin had told, because he’d been the only one Kenshin had thought would care. In that supposition he was wrong, of course. Sano had never cared.
“…should have gone to the police…” He wondered if he’d taken a blow to the side of his head that might have done something to his hearing.
The river beneath him. That was the only real reason the news was so unsettling — because the river he looked out on was gilded by the sunset to just the color of Saitou’s eyes. He’d thought that old man would never go. Well, he’d thought that old man was invincible. But Kenshin had been in Kyoto by coincidence just then, and had seen the body. Had made sure to see the body, so there could be no mistake this time.
His chest hurt; he thought he was breathing shallowly, out there on the other side of consciousness where he could not quite reach.
Although he didn’t care, he questioned Kenshin rather carefully about circumstances, as he’d been deceived once and didn’t want it to happen again. Kenshin gave explicit answers to the best of his knowledge.
Apparently Saitou had gone alone to attempt the rescue of a abducted child, feeling he would have a better chance at infiltrating the kidnappers’ hideout by himself. But he’d been discovered and the enemies’ numbers had been greater than was generally supposed. Greater even than Mibu no Ookami could handle on his own. Although Kenshin did hint that Saitou might have been more aware of that beforehand than he’d let on. That perhaps there had been more… bravado… in the act than many others believed. At any rate, he was killed, as was the hostage; the police were still looking into the affair, but now there was no longer any hope of recovering the abductee, the case was likely to be dropped rather quickly.
Sano could see it all, even when only half awake. He could picture every detail: Saitou striking blow after deadly blow but slowly hemmed in by an overwhelming group of thugs, falling finally of many wounds… the last justice the wolf would ever deal out.
“…what was he thinking?”
The bridge. The figure of a much-distressed youth whose rich fiance had been kidnapped from under his nose. It was just too tempting, too perfect — too coincidental. Did you set this up, old man? Sano wondered. But Saitou would not have answered such a stupid question. “Don’t bother with the police,” he said. “They fuck everything up. I’ll go get her out.”
“But why did he do it?” That was the question the voices all kept asking. Saitou would have asked that too, if he were here. If he were still alive. Except that Saitou wouldn’t mean it the way they did. Saitou saw through everything, and Sano knew he would know.
The light that shone on his closed eyelids was as golden as the river had been.
The river. He knew what Saitou would say if he saw him here, watching the shining water roll away beneath him endlessly in the long dusk and thinking fixedly of a rival he would never see again. It would be something to the purpose of, Ahou — because that was how it always started — why don’t you find something productive to do?
And he probably should. After all, it wasn’t as if he cared. But then the sun set completely, and the water seemed to burn for a moment and then go black, like a bright flame suddenly extinguished. And Sano wondered… had it been like that? Had the fire in Saitou’s eyes gone out that abruptly? From gold to crimson to sable in an instant, just so?
Saitou would mock him: A little fanciful, are we? But Sano couldn’t help thinking that so it must have been. Also that it was terribly inviting, such a deep black color of death. He couldn’t blame Saitou for having accepted it. The best way to go would be to flame and burn out; would Saitou have thought so too?
And perhaps now…
And then the footsteps.
Too convenient, he reflected at the thought of the circumstance and its timing. You really must have set this one up.
“…should have known it was too big for him to handle alone…” He wondered if voices had asked the same questions, made the same comments, if in perhaps more hushed tones, after Saitou’s failure. Although he noticed Kenshin had no input. Kenshin probably saw through it too; he alone knew how similar Sano’s situation had been to the one he’d described earlier that very day. He must have his guesses as to why Sano had been so foolish.
“Hey, bro, haven’t you heard of me? You’ve got Zanza on your side now!” The young man seemed to perk up at this, and didn’t mind so much the idea of leaving the police out of the business. But still he insisted on coming along too. Well, that was fine. Sano could show off a little.
His body hurt all over: bruised, he thought. Lots of heavy bruises. As soon as he woke fully, he would be able to move and figure out if he had any cuts or broken bones.
There were too many of them, and the girl was too front and central for him to get her out first and then go down fighting. He’d left behind the days when he’d refused to admit he was dangerously outnumbered, and now he knew perfectly well this was not a battle he could win.
Saitou must have known that too.
“…but I don’t understand why he…”
Yes, if Saitou were still alive, he would surely say the same. Except that he would have seen the answer to the immediate question and would be asking something a bit more profound:
There were better ways you could have chosen to be like me. Why would you want to die like I did?
And Sano would have no answer for him.
No more than for the other question Saitou would probably ask — Why did you want to die at all?
He was waking up now, slowly, finally. He must have made some noise, probably a groan at the heightening pain as consciousness approached, for the conversation whose bits and pieces had been reaching him through the haze abruptly ceased. Or perhaps more time had passed than he realized, and they’d all gone away.
He could open only one of his eyes; the other ached and stung, obviously swollen. His throat ached with dryness, so much that he could make nothing more than a croaking sound when he tried to speak.
Megumi appeared, blurry and overly bright, and gave him a little water. She spoke no word, but her eyes were like books, and what Sano read in them made his heart sink. It was more than just Why did you? — it was You shouldn’t have. As if she were at all qualified to make that judgment when she didn’t know why… but he might be imagining things.
“Sano,” Kenshin’s voice said.
Now to see if Kenshin saw through it. He didn’t always see things the way Saitou had, so maybe he couldn’t tell.
“Yeah,” Sano rasped. “Hello.”
“I’m glad you are awake,” Kenshin said.
Sano honestly couldn’t bring himself to say the same. Despite the chaos of his jumbled thoughts, being halfway conscious had been a good deal less painful than being fully so. And he didn’t like Kenshin’s tone. So the only answer he made was inarticulate and low.
“Sano, please do not do that again.” It was a tone that tried not to be hurt or reproving, and failed.
For several moments Sano was tempted to reply, “Do what, Kenshin?” as if he didn’t know perfectly well his friend had him figured out. But he had a sneaking suspicion, somehow, that pretending ignorance, forcing Kenshin to explain it to him plainly, would not make him feel much better. So finally he merely said, “I won’t.” And didn’t add, Unless another coincidence like that pops up. Actually, he tried not to admit that thought even to himself.
“Thank you,” said Kenshin softly.
That was the worst it got, but the next step down was almost less tolerable for being more protracted. Megumi, Kaoru, and Yahiko, not to mention the other friends that came to visit, were ignorant of the true depth of the circumstances, so all they could do was ask why… but that was enough.
“Let’s have a look at this thick skull of yours,” Megumi would say, sardonically pleasant, then add silently, with real darkness, “Why did you give me more work for no good reason?”
“I brought you lunch, Sanosuke!” Kaoru would chirp, turning severe with, “And don’t you say a word about how it tastes!” But her true comment was, “Why did you ruin everyone’s peace?”
“If you don’t hurry up and get better, I’m gonna move into your place,” Yahiko threatened. What he really meant was, “Why did you let me down?”
Sano pretended to need a lot more sleep than he was actually getting.
Kenshin saw through this, of course, and his ever-present and far more penetrating “Why?” was the worst of all.
Saitou hadn’t heard, then. He didn’t know. But, again, now he’d been forced by his own carelessness to think about it, Sano couldn’t decide whether this was good or bad. Did he want Saitou to know? It was too late now anyway, and what could Saitou possibly say in response? Even if he didn’t tear Sano to pieces for his foolishness, it was still… too late. A certain nausea, the same that had twisted his stomach the first time, again threatened his already-dubious physical well-being every time he considered the matter, and this as well as everything else that had happened lately made Sano doubt himself. He wasn’t as certain of the clarity of his own reflections as he would like… should he really share them with someone else, someone so… capable of hurting him… if he wasn’t sure?
He lay awake, or half-awake, meandering through pain and dreams and contemplating this question for hours in the darkness… and eventually reached the conclusion (a conclusion he perhaps should have expected and therefore reached much sooner) that some things needed to be said regardless of the outcome. Regardless of his state of mind.
Coming out with something like that, seriously saying it aloud, premeditated and deliberate, wasn’t as easily done as it was decided upon, however. Days passed before he managed to work up the requisite resolve (he couldn’t quite call it nerve, as he couldn’t quite call what held him back fear), and during that time he grew restless and agitated. It didn’t help that Saitou said little and Sano had no hint of a clue about what the response might be when he finally managed to tell him.
Eventually he forced himself out of the quiet apartment and took to the streets. He had no idea where he was going, but the impetus to movement had something to do with not wanting to see or be seen by anyone. Anyone living, that is. He felt his confession nearly ready, that it was creeping up on him, and he didn’t want to be around people when it burst out.
A field he came upon in a sparse, quiet, distant area of town beckoned him to its center, for the wind-ruffled yet empty feeling that hung about it seemed appropriate somehow. He wandered across, steps slowing in the rustling grass. Finally he stopped and took a long look all around him.
You’re more aimless than usual today, Saitou commented, and it was as good an opening as any.
“I… wanted to talk to you,” Sano admitted, feeling foolish.
You spend most of your time talking to me. Your neighbors think you’re insane.
“Well, none of them are here right now, are they? That’s kinda the point.”
Ahou.
“Why’d you just leave the other night, anyway? Didn’t even say goodbye or anything.”
Do you think I’m at your disposal? That I have nothing better to do?
“Course not. Not like I have any real idea what you do these days, but still… you… missed what I had to say.”
Hmm, what an extraordinary pity.
Sano gave a sigh, amused and exasperated. “Well, listen now, all right? Don’t go running off, or floating off, or whatever you do at this point.”
In exchange, try not to make it too boring.
Sano chose not to respond to this jab either. “Look, what I want to tell you is…” Even without having to meet an intense golden stare while making this statement, it was difficult to spit out. “You’ve changed me. You held me to your standard while you were alive — I practically had no choice but to be a better person — and even after you were dead you wouldn’t let me throw my life away. So it’s like you saved me twice. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t get to your level. The only thing I can ever really do is wish for it and want to touch it and want…” Finally, finally he came to the point. “And want you. Not like that’s possible now, I know, but at least I want you to know… I love you. And I’d kinda like to know how you feel about me back.”
There was a very long, and to Sano very tense silence. Eventually Saitou simply remarked, Hn…
“What does that mean? Is ‘I love you’ too boring, or what?”
Maybe, when you’ve said it twice before.
“What the– you did hear me then? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Saitou had no reply.
“Any chance you could stop being an asshole and say something? Right, like you could ever stop being an asshole. Why the hell do I love you, anyway? Could you at least tell me that?”
Still no answer.
“Guess it bothers you to hear me say it, huh? Well, suck it up, bastard. I love you, I love you, I love you. You hear me?” And he flung his gaze into the sky, shaking an irate, clenched fist upward. “I love you!!”
Startled by a soft noise behind him, he whirled suddenly, and found himself looking unexpectedly into the face of an uncertain Kenshin.
“Shit,” he muttered, lowering his hand and letting it go lax. He hadn’t considered how loudly he’d been talking; he hadn’t felt the need. Had Kenshin heard the whole thing? Sano must sound certifiably crazy at this point.
Such seemed to be the case, for the look in Kenshin’s eyes that the rurouni was not very well able to conceal seemed to be one of pitying horror.
“Kenshin…” he began. “Hey… this…”
“Sano,” whispered Kenshin with a minuscule shake of his head. “Sano, I am so sorry.”
“Sorry?”
It appeared Kenshin didn’t quite have words to convey his feelings or thoughts at the moment.
“Kenshin, look,” Sano said, trying to sound reasonable. “I know that sounded kindof… um, crazy… but, seriously, I’m not. It’s… it’s just something…” There wasn’t really any way to explain it, though, that wouldn’t sound just as insane as the overheard one-sided conversation must have.
“This is my fault… I never should have told you…”
“Told me what?” Sano demanded, a little impatiently. He didn’t like that expression of Kenshin’s, the one of sympathetic despair. “I’d have known he was dead soon enough when he started haunting me, wouldn’t I? It wouldn’t have mattered.”
“Sano, I never thought your liking him was a good idea. He didn’t think so either, so–”
“What, he knew??” Sano broke in. “He knew I liked him?!” The fist clenched again. “That fucking asshole,” he muttered, looking away so as not to direct his pained rage straight into Kenshin’s face. “He knew before I even knew and he didn’t say anything, and he won’t say anything now even when I fucking tell him straight up.”
“Sano… Sano, Saitou is not–”
“Don’t even go there, Kenshin. I’m not crazy. I know perfectly well nobody else can hear him. Doesn’t make me crazy. I’ve met ghosts before; doesn’t make any difference that I just hear him and don’t see him this time.”
“Sano…”
“Dammit, just leave me alone, Kenshin,” Sano commanded, a little wearily. “I’m pissed enough as it is.”
Appearing helpless and desperate, Kenshin seemed to be contemplating a variety of things to say; finally he just shook his head. “All right.” And he turned and walked away.
Days wore by without another encounter with the rurouni. Of course Sano hadn’t been around him much lately anyway, but now he didn’t even see him, walking through town, as he usually did. “Guy must really think I’m crazy,” Sano remarked on this at a mutter after a week had passed, “and he’s avoiding me now.”
You were ranting like a lunatic, was Saitou’s helpful, amused-sounding comment. Himura’s tolerance level is high, but everyone has to draw the line somewhere.
“If you goddamn heard me ranting like a lunatic, you could have answered my fucking question,” Sano protested.
Hn. He still sounded amused, but at the same time somewhat disinterested. Obviously Saitou didn’t feel like answering, and what exactly did that mean? What did it mean that he was willing to stick around, to converse with Sano at all hours of the day, to share inside jokes with him and comment carelessly on almost every aspect of Sano’s private life… but unwilling to respond to what might be the most important statement Sano had ever made, the most meaningful question he’d ever asked?
Because Sano wouldn’t like the answer? He couldn’t believe that; Saitou would not have so much consideration for him. Why, then? He didn’t understand.
And perhaps the reason Saitou didn’t answer was part of the reason Sano didn’t understand… some deficiency in him that rendered the answer as well as Saitou’s motives incomprehensible? He’d never been good enough; that almost made sense.
But of course Sano could not accept it.
He couldn’t run. Despite the fact that, figuratively, that was exactly what he was doing — running from an array of accusing eyes and pursed lips and soft voices asking endlessly why, why, why?? — he was still too weak actually to run. He thought a few more good nights’ sleep would have him up to a decent level of strength again, but he wouldn’t spend them at that quiet, accusatory clinic. So he stumbled home.
He felt sure he knew what Saitou would say if he saw him stagger into his dirty little apartment and hit the futon like he weighed a ton with a grunt to match. Well, Saitou would just call him some rude name. But if he were in a mood to elaborate, he would surely mock Sano for being so weak he couldn’t handle a little disapprobation in order to get the medical attention he needed. And Sano would insist he didn’t need any medical attention, and Saitou would probably point out the worst of his wounds and ask facetiously if they were cosmetic.
Sano couldn’t help grinning up at the ceiling a little at the thought.
Here he could sleep, for there was no interminable conversation of why‘s on the other side of consciousness to invade his dreams. Soon he would be completely well again, if left alone like this. That was all he really wanted: to be alone.
You’re lucky you didn’t get sick, then, Saitou would say. The words would be a disinterested observation, but the tone would be sarcastic. If a fever had come with those bruises of yours, you wouldn’t be able to make it on your own.
And that was true. Sano was glad he didn’t have a fever. He wouldn’t have much to say in response to that.
The passage of time eluded his comprehension. When he awoke, he couldn’t remember what part of the day it had been when he’d left the clinic, and therefore couldn’t determine how long he’d been asleep. His head still hurt. He was excessively hungry.
Forcing himself to sit up, however laborious and painful the process, he slowly checked his bandages. Some had come loose, and they could probably all do with a change. When he would have the energy to wash the used ones, though, he didn’t know. He hoped he had enough of his own to keep himself alive until then.
Saitou would certainly have something to say, on observing this, about Sano’s forethought, and Sano muttered preemptively, “Shut up…” as he lay back down. Then he contemplated, for a very long time, sitting up again. He needed to change the bandages so he wouldn’t get infected, but somehow all he could give any serious thought to was the memory of the bridge and approaching footsteps just as the sun set.
“That guy’s dead now.” He didn’t realize he was talking to Saitou until he added, “Dead as you are.”
He thought that if Saitou were feeling relatively light-hearted, he might inquire into Sano’s assignment of degrees of deadness. Otherwise he would probably just comment that most people died eventually.
“Most of the time it ain’t my fault, though.”
Maybe it is, and you’re just not aware of it, Saitou might say.
And Sano laughed quietly, painfully, at the thought of expecting any kind of comfort from that man. He fell asleep again.
How many days passed in similar manner he couldn’t tell, and probably didn’t want to. His own convalescence might have served as some type of measure — how at first even taking stock of his condition exhausted him, but eventually he was actually able to stand and move — but he did not heed it, not wanting to risk Saitou’s hypothetical derisive comments on his recovery rate.
Eventually his apartment and the heavy awareness of what he had done or hadn’t done, not to mention the why‘s in his own mind, became too oppressive, and he stumbled out for a walk despite the pain. He couldn’t bear bright sunlight just yet, so he waited until dusk; in the cool evening he found there was a sensation vaguely like freedom about escaping his empty room and moving about as if he were perfectly well in mind and body, and this almost made him able to forget or ignore his condition. Thus he walked farther than he’d intended, farther than was probably healthy, and found himself after not too long, unexpectedly and yet so appropriately, on that bridge again. He couldn’t quite say this was where it had all started, but still it fit so well to revisit this spot.
The water was now even blacker than it had been that day, its increased darkness in some ways more enticing and in some more horrific. It stretched like a shadow, a deep endless shadow you could easily blend into… or, at least, somebody with dark hair and dark clothing could. Sano would stand out, a blemish on the water, until he sank and was entirely forgotten, not by choice but because he just wasn’t good enough.
But of course Sano could not accept it. Time slipped by, however, without any possible solution occurring to him. He didn’t exactly have a history of getting likeable answers out of Saitou, and Saitou’s current state just made things more difficult.
Kenshin was around town again. Sano saw him once or twice, but avoided his eye, and Kenshin did not solicit his company. Sano didn’t regret this; he was avoiding all of his friends right now while he grew more and more agitated within himself, felt more and more helpless and trapped and just unutterably stupid. He took to going on a lot of long, aimless walks, greeting or even looking up at nobody he passed.
And then, not to his surprise but perhaps a little to his dismay, he found himself again in the field where he’d made his first deliberate confession. As he looked around and remembered that day, a frown formed slowly on his face.
Saitou, who had been rather quiet during that walk, now commented sardonically, Returning to the scene of the crime, are we?
“What crime?” Sano demanded, instantly incensed. He definitely hadn’t come here to revisit the previous conversation, as he’d yet to determine how to word what he wanted to say, hadn’t actually figured out whether he really wanted to know… but, as was or had been often the case, a statement seemingly casual on Saitou’s part was unbearably stabbing to Sano; it set him off, and, all hesitation and uncertainly flung aside, he plunged on without thinking:
“Is it so wrong I finally figured out how I feel about you? I know it was fucking stupid that it took me so long, so go ahead and mock me for that… but first you better tell me one thing straight out: what the hell do you think about me?” Trying to calm down wasn’t working. “Did we ever have a chance?” He wasn’t sure whether he sounded (or felt) more angry, sad, or confused. “And if you like me, why didn’t you ever say anything? And if you don’t, why the hell do you still hang around?”
No reply, only a tense, foreboding feeling in the air as it stilled; in no part of the field did the wind move, and the anxiety heightened as Sano continued to wait for a rejoinder that never came. It seemed to him that whatever was about to happen here would change everything — there was something dark and ominous in the stillness — but that it simply wasn’t going to happen, for better or worse, if Saitou didn’t want it to; it was Saitou’s move.
“Why is this the one thing I say that you can’t answer?” Sano burst out at last, his blood heating even further. “Anything else I say or do you’ve got some smart-ass comment on, but the one thing I really want you to respond to makes you suddenly shut up? I think it’s pretty damn important, when somebody tells you they love you, to give them an answer at least! Especially when… goddammit, Saitou, you’re fucking dead! I know you can’t hang around here forever, so at least tell me if…”
As his voice faded, thick, pensive silence again enveloped the field, and Sano’s heart-rate and desperation increased. “You set up that stupid coincidence, with the kidnappings and all,” he growled. “Almost like you wanted me to go like you did and join you; then you started hanging out around me when that didn’t work, when there’s gotta be better afterlife shit you could be doing… If you don’t care about me, why would you go to all that trouble? Why would you still be here?”
At the continued strained quiet, Sano crouched and pounded the ground in anger, sending a slight tremor out a dozen feet around him and causing the grass to ripple. “Dammit, Saitou, answer me!”
He stood straight again, staring ahead of him with wild, unblinking eyes, as if by gazing hard enough he could cause the outline he envisioned to materialize, even if in a non-corporeal form, force his will on Saitou and get his questions answered. “You can’t go forever without saying anything!” he shouted. “Do you think I’m just going to let it drop, stop bugging you about it? Saitou!!”
Into the next silence he gave a frustrated roar as he fell to his knees and slammed both fists into the ground this time. “Damn you!” he gritted out. “Damn you.” His hands opened to lie flat against the earth as his voice sank to a whisper. “Damn you… even if you fucking hate me, doesn’t it mean anything to you that I love you? Can’t you even have the decency to let me know, let me stop wondering? Are you gonna make me go forever not knowing what I mean to you, why you had to get into my head while you were alive and why you decided to haunt me now you’re dead?” His hand clenched again, clawing at the dirt as his eyes squeezed shut against tears that wanted to fly from them as his head dropped to face the ground.
For the next few moments, his ragged breaths were the only sounds to disturb the thick and sober atmosphere, until finally a slight breeze shifted the air in his direction. Startled, he drew in a gasp and opened his eyes, for it seemed he suddenly smelled cigarette smoke.
“S-saitou?” he stammered.
“Himura was right, it seems. What he thinks I can do about it, I’m not entirely sure, but when he said you’d gone completely mad, he wasn’t exaggerating.”
Sano’s eyes grew wide with disbelief, and he found he couldn’t quite get his shaking body to move, to stand as he wanted it to. So like an animal he clawed his way around on his knees to face the sound of that voice, that voice whose source he had to find, because it had come not from the hazy nothingness of the afterlife as he was accustomed to, but from just behind him at a normal human level, with normal human tone and volume.
He scrambled the one hundred and eighty long degrees, all the breath gone from his body, his mind at once numb and exploding, his gaze unblinking but faltering badly as every part of him shook except his abruptly motionless heart, to look up — up what seemed a hundred miles past despair and insanity and denial — up into the eyes of a very present, very real, very living Saitou Hajime.
Would God I could awaken!
For I dream I know not how,
And my soul is sorely shaken
Lest an evil step be taken, —
Lest the dead who is forsaken
May not be happy now.
–Edgar Allan Poe
This story, which I’ve rated , was dedicated to MsJadey because I originally discussed the idea with her and because it was just the kind of tragic and messed-up take on this pairing that she always seemed to like.
Sano didn’t feel like explaining that in repressing the awareness of the cupboard’s emptiness and going to look as if it might contain something, there was a pleasure, if not equal to eating, better at least than lying around realistically contemplating the lack of food in his possession. And therein, to great extent, lies the theme of this fic. Unhealthy and unhappy, isn’t it?
But it’s only partly the fault of this attitude of Sano’s; Kenshin and Saitou are very much to blame as well. Apparently Kenshin hasn’t yet learned his lesson — that he shouldn’t try to interfere in the Saitou/Sano thing. At least Saitou was in on the heinous plot this time. Of course, if he hadn’t been, I would have succeeded in writing a Saitou/Sano story that did not actually feature Saitou.
I commissioned a sort of illustration/concept piece for this fic of Link Worshiper:
I’m sitting on the edge of the porch, and with the angle of the wind, the storm is coming down right into my face. Hell, I’m looking up into it, and only closing my eyes when I seriously can’t stand it.
He just got home, I think. I should really go inside to him. Pretty sad when you don’t even welcome your own lover home, isn’t it? But I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to see him. I get like this sometimes… it’ll pass. Sex will help… though that requires me to actually go in there…
He and I have been together for a long time now… ever since Kenshin got married. That same night, actually, was our first time. But he wanted me for a long time before that. Good to see someone has what he wants, I guess. I should add it’s good to have exactly what I need, too… but in this kind of mood, the kind where I’d rather sit out in the rain than go in and pretend any more, I just can’t.
He’s perfect for me. He’s strong, he’s energetic, he’s smart, he’s loyal, he’s good. He keeps me in line and inspires me to be a better person. He always knows exactly the right thing to say to me at any given moment, especially if I’m being stupid or stubborn; he’s unfailingly logical and practical. Sometimes I hate him for that. But I respect him too much to really hate him. I like him too much.
But I don’t love him.
Fuck knows I’ve tried… tried my damnedest to give up, to forget, to move on, to let this be the perfect match it should be, that he wants it to be… but giving up, forgetting, and moving on are a few things I’ve always been particularly bad at. And someone else was there first.
The back door slides open and he steps onto the porch. “What are you doing out here?” he wonders.
I look over at him, and I can’t think of anything to say. I may hate him sometimes, but I would never want to hurt him. Not like that, anyway; not that much; not anymore.
“Sano, are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I finally manage. “Rain’s just a little depressing, is all.”
He rolls his eyes. “Then don’t sit out in it, ahou.” And he gestures for me to come to him.
See what I said? Logical, practical, always knows what to say to me, even if he might not realize the decision he’s telling me to make is about more than just the weather. If the rain’s depressing, don’t sit out in it, ahou: it’s that simple. And I bet it would be just that for him: a decision, and a simple one. If the rain’s depressing, make the choice not to sit out in it, not to be depressed by it. He has that kind of will power. As for me… well, I thought I was strong, but…
“Yeah, you’re right,” I reply, standing up and shaking water from my hair and stepping toward his outstretched hand.
As for me…
I accompany my lover inside.
Even if I don’t sit out in the rain, that doesn’t stop it from falling.
Geez, what a sad story. It’s like the end of He Can Be Taught went horribly wrong. I wrote it because imillien beat me at the Quote-Guessy Game and requested “Sano in relationship with Saitou but not necessary in love with him. Like sometimes we are with people we know are good for us and we respect them but not always in love with them.” I’ve rated this fic .