Me and him (III)

(I)

After I went home and fell asleep that night, I had a dream.

In the dream, the sunlight was impossibly bright, more dazzling than even summer.

The pale orange sunlight baked the emerald-green taxi until it was scorching hot.

I sat in the back seat, holding nothing in my arms.

The driver asked where I wanted to go. Looking at my empty hands, I said,

"I don't know."

The driver understood and drove me around Kanagawa, circling it again and again.

He was looking for someone for me, someone who could take me "somewhere."

On our fourth pass by the station, a pale hand hailed the car.

The boy got into the passenger seat, carrying a faint scent of sweat.

His medium-length hair rested on his shoulders, and silky strands hung in the air as he fastened his seat belt.

I knew who he was. I knew he would panic when he saw me.

I knew he would ask questions he regretted asking, and that afterward, he would comfort me, sincerely and awkwardly.

I even knew "where" he would take me.

The me in the dream was more clearheaded than the "Yuanli" outside it, who had fled in panic after being spotted by the Six Eyes.

So, in the dream, I asked to get out.

I didn't want to hear his questions. I didn't want to see his panic.

I didn't want him to comfort me.

Clearheaded, I wanted to cut this kindness off at its source.

I resolutely believed that if this kindness never happened, it wouldn't affect me when I pulled the trigger.

But the me in the dream was resolute without being resolved.

Because the car stopped, yet I refused to get out.

I woke when the car stopped.

After waking, what I remembered most vividly wasn't the scorching heat, or that fine strand of the boy's hair hanging in the air.

It was the closed car door.

That door, baked hot by the blazing sun, which I could have pushed open simply by reaching out.

Freud, the author of the psychology book The Interpretation of Dreams, once said,

"Dreams are the fulfillment of wishes."

So was a closed car door really what I wished for?

Of course not.

I was one of the few people willing to dissect myself without flinching.

Looking at the thin girl in the mirror, I told my reflection frankly,

You don't want the car door closed. It's not that you don't want to get out, either.

You just want him to comfort you.

Because from the moment the boy got into the car, you realized that his gentle smile was exactly like Yuanyin's tender smile at the newborn Megumi Fushiguro in this life.

(II)

I thought I would never think of Yuanyin again.

After all, clinging to the past wasn't like me.

But then I saw Suguru Geto again.

In a record shop with only a few customers, the boy wore a black school uniform and headphones, his head lowered over an album with a simple color scheme.

His profile looked a little rugged, giving him a different air than when viewed from the front.

There was none of that fragility, none of that eagerness to please that disgusted me.

He was like a neatly cut piece of marble with its corners worn smooth.

Cold, steadfast, yet unexpectedly approachable.

My hearing was good. As he swayed slightly to the music, I recognized the singer coming through his headphones.

It was Freddie Mercury's voice. He was listening to Queen.

Perhaps no one would believe it, but I had actually met Queen's lead singer.

It was Britain in 1973, when music spread not only through live performances in little pubs, but through radio broadcasts too.

When I went to pick up a thoroughly drunk Yuanyin, I heard Queen's debut album, Queen, in the pub.

Freddie was immensely talented. His voice, his adorable buck teeth, and the infectious energy of his movements made it impossible to look away from him.

When the song ended, he jumped off the stage with a beer and walked over to Yuanyin, who was so drunk she could barely tell people from animals. With the Beatles-style swagger popular at the time, he clinked glasses with her.

That sounded like a romantic, clichéd opening-provided Yuanyin and I hadn't been members of the dreaded Mafia back then.

In any case, it ended with Freddie being dragged away by his bandmates, and he never visited any pub we owned again.

My thoughts had wandered rather far. By the time I came back to myself, the boy had already left the shop.

I went inside and asked the clerk which album Suguru Geto had just bought.

Looking like a child came in handy at times like this. Without the slightest suspicion, the clerk took a copy from a shelf and handed it to me.

"This is Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Do you like rock bands too, little one?"

I nodded and thanked the clerk. As I took the album to pay, the clerk asked another question,

"Are you going to listen to it yourself?"

"Yes."

I didn't see any reason to hide that.

The clerk frowned. "Have your mom listen with you when you play it."

My fingers instinctively tightened around the album, like a wary little animal.

"Why?"

The clerk faltered and said awkwardly, "Because this is an album about a child and his mother... how should I put it... oh! If your mom is there, she can explain some of the lyrics to you."

The explanation was terrible, but I could tell the clerk meant well.

Presumably, some of the lyrics in the song weren't things children could understand, or should hear.

But I felt uncomfortable. From the moment the clerk said the word "mom," discomfort crawled through my whole body.

It was like someone suddenly tearing open a wound that had been stitched shut.

The flesh that had yet to heal was exposed to the air once more.

After going home, I threw the album, case and all, under my bed.

The nostalgia I'd felt earlier, like meeting an old friend, vanished too.

Sitting in the armchair in my room, I suddenly felt everything turning awful again.

Why wouldn't the mire of the past let me go?

Why did it have to drown me over and over?

There was a knock at the door, and Megumi called my name in his soft voice.

I looked up at the clock.

It was already well past mealtime.

I could accept being held back by terrible emotions, but not once they began affecting my family.

Hiding my emotions, I left my room as usual and got along peacefully with my family.

But when I returned to my room that night and closed the door, I unwittingly sank into anxiety.

No. I can't let the past ruin the life I have now.

I began examining the root of the problem.

And all the symptoms pointed to Suguru Geto.

Kill him. I have to kill him.

That was what I told myself.

(III)

I picked up my binoculars and began following Suguru Geto.

Because of the Six Eyes, I couldn't get too close. And perhaps my loss of control last time had alerted him, because the Six Eyes now stayed by Suguru Geto's side constantly.

I couldn't find an opportunity for a clean shot.

Yes, I had already abandoned the idea of repaying his kindness.

It was only a tasteless piece of candy, only a smile I had never received from Yuanyin.

I had become far too obsessed.

I followed the two of them as they went on missions together every day. While they laughed and chatted as they killed cursed spirits in abandoned buildings, I hid in a commercial building five kilometers away, watching through binoculars for an opening.

The Six Eyes couldn't stay with Suguru Geto forever. There had to be a moment when he slipped away on his own.

I waited a week before that day finally came.

The white-haired boy answered a phone call, waved to Suguru Geto, then left in a car.

Once his companion was gone, that gentle, smiling face took on the expression I had seen in the record shop.

He walked alone down the bustling street.

I followed him, closing the distance between us little by little.

Eventually, his figure no longer looked as tiny as an ant. Only a few hundred meters separated us.

I thought I had gone mad.

Abandoning my gun, I actually drew Yuanyin's Jinchūmaru.

Holding the katana that was as tall as I was, I charged toward him.

Two hundred meters remained.

I'll cut him in half.

I'll cut that mire in half.

One hundred meters remained.

He'll cease to exist.

That terrible past will cease to exist.

Fifty meters remained.

As long as I kill him, that smile-that smile I never once received from Yuanyin-will never fall on me again.

As long as I kill him, I can free myself from that tenderness, the tenderness that keeps me from pushing open the car door even in my midnight dreams.

As long as I kill him, I can lie to myself.

Yuanyin didn't only love Megumi Fushiguro. She didn't only love Toji Zenin.

Yuanyin must have loved me once.

I was a child loved by her mother too.

Ten meters remained.

I couldn't raise the blade.

Jinchūmaru fell to the ground, then slipped back into the void.

Everything before my eyes blurred. I couldn't see anything clearly.

I couldn't kill Suguru Geto.

At least, I couldn't use a reason like this to kill someone who had nothing to do with my suffering.

I had to admit that Yuanyin's not loving me had nothing to do with killing Suguru Geto.

She simply didn't love me.

And he simply resembled her.

I was inventing a crime to condemn him for. What had he done wrong?

I covered my face and sobbed, feeling that I had let Megumi and Toji down.

They could both move forward. Only I seemed as though I would never get better.

How was I supposed to heal a scar that no medicine could cure?

How could I ever let go of two hundred years of unrequited love?

I truly wanted to live a good life.

Just as I shut myself away completely in the pain of being abandoned by the whole world, a piece of clothing scented with grass covered me from head to toe.

"Are you all right?"

Had you ever heard a pipe organ? The voice reaching my ears now sounded like one playing.

I couldn't speak. My pride made me bite down hard on my lower lip.

"Then would you like me to comfort you?"

No, I don't need it.

Don't comfort me. Please.

I know who you are. I've heard your voice.

Both in dreams and in reality.

I also know how gentle the expression on your face is right now.

How much you resemble the person I loved for two hundred years, the person whose love I could never have.

My heart frantically refused, but my body nodded against my will.

One corner of the uniform jacket covering me was lifted.

The boy's gentle smile and crescent-shaped eyes were like an exquisite gift unwrapping itself.

He was crouching in front of me.

Without the slightest guard, he exposed his vulnerable neck to my gaze.

This time, he truly was close. Never mind five meters-there wasn't even one between us.

One cut would have been enough. Maybe I wouldn't even have needed a blade, because he had willingly picked me up, as though he were holding a four-year-old child.

My hand touched his pale neck.

With a heavenly restriction, I could strangle someone with one hand.

I didn't even need to wrap my arm around his neck. The force of my fingertips alone would have been enough to pierce the artery beneath it.

But I couldn't do it.

Because, unbelievably, he was gently rocking me with tender affection while soothingly patting my back.

That hit me even harder than a smile like Yuanyin's.

After all, even Yuanyin had never done anything so utterly motherly for Megumi Fushiguro.